OH, BOTHER!
Milne’s magic proves hard to pin down
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
out of 5
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jim Cummings, Hayley Atwell
Director: Marc Forster
Duration: 1h44m CHRIS KNIGHT
Oh, bother! Disney’s liveaction Winnie the Pooh film marks the second time in the past year that studios have plundered the life of Christopher Robin Milne for feel-good material.
But C.R. Milne did not live a good-feeling life. Last autumn’s Goodbye Christopher Robin focused on the downside of becoming famous as a character in your father’s writings. And this one, heavily fictionalized, presents a grown-up C.R. Milne dealing with a drudgy office job at a luggage factory in postwar England. Bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy it is not.
The story opens lugubriously, with the animals of the Hundred Acre Wood — Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo — sadly toasting young Christopher’s departure into adulthood. Eeyore (you thought I’d forgotten him, didn’t you?) reads a gloomy poem, after which a montage follows Christopher (Ewan McGregor) through the various hells of boarding school, the Second World War and employment, with the faintest glimmer of sunshine from wife (Hayley Atwell) and daughter (Bronte Carmichael).
The Winslow luggage company has since fallen on hard times, and Christopher is tasked with bringing costs down or firing a large portion of the workforce — the simpering boss (Mark Gatiss) doesn’t really care which. He has to work all weekend and can’t join his wife and child at their cottage in the countryside.
The countryside, however, has other plans. Winnie the Pooh is magically transported to London, and Christopher has to get him back to the Hundred Acre Wood before the honey-loving ursine destroys his home.
Gentle life lessons are standard fare in any Poohvie, but they’re rare and a little clunky in this outing.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the result a Film of Very Little Brain, but something feels off. Christopher Robin tries hard to capture some of the magic in Milne’s work, but it’s not an easy quality to pin down. When you head into the Hundred Acre Wood, it’s easy to get lost.