Dad’s story
GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN ★★★
(Cert PG; 107mins)
CAST a film well and you are halfway home. Just imagine Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford or The Sound Of Music starring anyone other than Julie Andrews. One of the problems with Goodbye Christopher Robin is that some of the leading actors seem far from comfortable in their roles.
The story of AA Milne and the creation of Winnie The Pooh should warm the heart and bring a tear to the eye but there are only fleeting moments when it hits the mark.
Goodbye Christopher Robin is one long flashback, opening with the arrival of tragic news in the heart of the Second World War then rewinding to the aftermath of the First World War.
A dazzling fixture of West End theatre, playwright AA Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) has been left shellshocked by his experiences in the trenches of the Western Front. A jarring noise, a flashing light or a burst balloon can transport him back into the heat of battle. He is determined that from now on his writing will serve the cause of peace.
Two years after the Armistice, Milne is coldly indifferent to the birth of his son Christopher Robin, known to the family as Billy Moon. His ghastly wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) seems to feel that her maternal duties ended with the birth and the child is handed over to nanny Olive, warmly played by Kelly Macdonald in the one role that seems perfectly cast.
However, when father and son are forced to spend time together, they become the best of friends, strolling through acres of local woods, playing games and inventing stories using some of their favourite soft toys as characters.
The boy’s innocent wonder and sense of adventure are a healing tonic. And when Billy (Will Tilston) asks his father to write a book for him, it is the inspiration for the Winnie The Pooh novels. The happiness they bring to a grieving world ensures international success but takes the film down a darker path.
Billy becomes a commodity, rolled out to meet the press and greet adoring fans desperate to meet the “real” Christopher Robin. It is a form of child abuse that the older Billy (Alex Lawther) grows to resent with all his heart.
But the biggest issue lies with the casting. Australian actress Margot Robbie from Suicide Squad pitches Daphne as such a pantomime wicked witch that you wonder whether any of the story is true to life. The usually reliable Gleeson is unusually stilted,