The flicks
Life as an open book closes down a family in GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN while ‘tis the season to change g the locks and don’t answer the door in DADDY’S HOME 2
GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN (PG) Director: Simon Curtis (My Week with Marilyn) Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Will Tilston, Kelly Macdonald. Rating:
WHILE Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the most beloved children’s book characters of all time, far less is known about his creator, the British playwright and author AA Milne.
Needless to say, Goodbye Christopher Robin is looking to fill in a lot of those blanks.
As this serious (often bordering on stern) biopic shows us, Milne’s wistful lightness of touch as a writer came from quite a heavy place.
Suffering from an undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder after serving as a soldier in World War I, Milne (played by Domhnall Gleeson) keeps a careful emotional distance from his dissatisfied wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) and their neglected young boy Christopher (nicknamed Billy).
Reacclimatising to the bright lights, small talk and big parties of London proves to be a frustrating task for Milne. However, Daphne wants to be out among it as much as possible.
A rift opens between a couple who were never all that close to begin with.
Retreating to the countryside in a last-ditch attempt to find some purpose in life, Milne strikes literary gold in the rare combination of imagination and innocence pouring out of his son. Caught up in his own dark thoughts, Milne had previously failed to recognise the brightness of Billy. Father and son take long walks across the fields and through the woods.
Talking as they wander through their idyllic surrounds, the pair conjure soon-to-beimmortal figures such as Eeyore, Tigger and, of course, Winnie-the-Pooh for the first time.
Most importantly, Billy becomes the inspiration for Christopher Robin, the cherubic mainstay of the stories that soon catapult Milne to fame and fortune.
Most unfortunately, the child is also used as a marketing tool by publishers to promote his dad’s works.
Reporters and photographers are suddenly
DADDY’S HOME 2 (PG) Director: Sean Anders (Horrible Bosses 2) Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson, Jon Lithgow, Linda Cardellini, Alessandra Ambrosio. Rating:
HERE comes the second comedy sequel of the month to take a Christmas-flick shortcut to fun (of which there is little) and profit (for which we can only wish there will be little).
Just as Bad Moms 2 found a little freshness by adding some bad grandmas to the mix, Daddy’s Home 2 wheels in a pair of dysfunctional grandpas and hopes in vain for the best. Sadly, the results end up just as lame and lazy as they were in the original, though with a bitter aftertaste that was never there before. The core set-up remains a frustratingly fixed proposition.
Will Ferrell’s Brad (nerdy and nervous) and Mark Wahlberg’s Dusty (cool and confident) are duelling dads, always bickering over how to best raise a tribe of kids they are both kind of responsible for. In case you’ve forgotten, Brad’s wife (Linda Cardellini) used to be Dusty’s wife, everywhere. Father and son will never again be as close as they were when inspiration first took hold.
The lasting effects of these events on little Billy (beautifully portrayed by newcomer Will Tilston) are what really concern the movie, and poignantly shifts viewers into a reflective space they may not have expected going in.
For reasons beyond their control, Milne and his wife were what can only be termed cold of and has an inferiority complex about her ex’s new girlfriend (Alessandra Ambrosio).
Let’s not even list the kids. They’re precocious little punchline-mangling poppets anyway. The grating grandads of Daddy’s Home 2 must be named and shamed, however.
John Lithgow (Brad’s dad) fares slightly better here than Mel Gibson (Dusty’s dad), but only because his one-note performance is the easier of the two to stomach. Gibson, on the other hand, is a truly creepy presence in Daddy’s Home 2. The maniacal glare that is his go-to face when not speaking in this movie is bad enough. But it’s nothing compared to when Gibbo gets hold of a joke, and gives it some of that ‘Mad Mel’ magic. Sooner or later, some internet wiseguy is sure to do a supercut of just the Gibson scenes from Daddy’s Home 2. Shorn of all context, this will be a horror movie to match It. Almost as icky is a handful of sorely misjudged gags involving Brad and Dusty’s kids, all of whom end up drunk and passed-out at a Nativity play. One little girl keeps expressing her enthusiasm for firearms (“I’ll have one shotgun, please, Santa. And lot and lots of bullets!”), very unfunny in light of how many mass shootings have occurred recently. heart, and it was their only child who bore the brunt of the chill.
By all reports, it did not thaw until well into his adult life, and even then, never completely so. With such an icy path to be navigated through Goodbye Christopher Robin, viewers will definitely be drawn to the movie’s one pocket of enduring warmth: Billy’s relationship with the woman who all but raised him, his nanny Olive (a wonderful Kelly Macdonald).