‘Christopher Robin’ is warm and fuzzy

Sweet, charming story and powerful but simple effects help ‘Christopher Robin’ tug at heartstrings

Everything about “Christopher Robin” is charmingly old-fashioned, from its slow pace, timeless message and even — remarkably — the use of its state-of-the-art digital effects. ¶ The stuffed-animal characters of A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard come to glorious but simple life in a film named for the now-grown boy who once played and enjoyed adventures with the furry inhabitants of Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood. Those characters, including Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger and, last but not least, teddy bear Winnie the Pooh, date back nearly 100 years and feel like it in “Christopher Robin” — in the best way.

Ewan McGregor stars as the adult version of Christopher Robin, named for Milne’s son and who as a child was a frequent visitor to the realm of Pooh and Co. However, the tale begins with Christopher as a child, at a bittersweet moment when Christopher (Orton O’Brien) is saying goodbye to his friends before leaving home for boarding school.

“If anyone wants to clap, now is the time to do it,” deadpans the delightfully depressive donkey Eeyore (voiced perfectly by Brad Garrett of “Everybody Loves Raymond” fame). After a good bit of cake is devoured by all in attendance, Christopher and Pooh go off together for a bit, to “nowhere,” which the rather simple Pooh (Jim Cummings) states is “one of my favorite places.”

In the following years, Christopher gets an education, loses his father, meets future wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), goes off to serve England in World War II and has a daughter.

Now played by McGregor, he has settled into his work as an efficiency manager for Winslow Luggage, where he has been instructed to slash costs.

Charged with trimming the budget by a seemingly unreachable 20 percent by Monday morning, he will have to forgo a visit to his childhood home in the country with Evelyn and their daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael).

This crushes the girl, who, with her own trip to boarding school approaching, has become quite the achiever in an effort to please her father. And while Evelyn has come to expect this work-first behavior from her husband — she hadn’t even bothered to pack his suitcase — it nonetheless angers her. She tells him she cannot remember the last time she saw him have fun.

“Do you even like your job?” Evelyn demands of Christopher.

“What does that have to do with it?” he responds with bewilderment.

While Christopher has been left alone in his London home with his numbers to be crunched, Pooh awakens on a gloomy day in the Hundred Acre Wood to find (gasp!) he is out of honey and, worse, seemingly out of friends. Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Tigger (Cummings) and the rest are nowhere to be found.

Pooh soon finds himself at the tree through which the young Christopher used to visit from his home in Sussex. Instead of arriving there, however, Pooh finds himself a short walk from Christopher’s London home, and the pair’s reunion occurs with them sitting back-to-back on park benches, each which worry over their respective circumstances, in one of the myriad artful shots by director Marc Forster and director of photography Matthias Königswieser (“After the Fall”).

On some level, Christopher is happy to see Pooh — and is concerned with getting him into his home safely and without being seen — but he makes it clear he has no time for the bear at the moment. It’s one of the simple ways the screenplay from Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy and Allison Schroeder tugs at the heartstrings.

Their story also offers a few laughs, such as when Pooh goes missing at a train station and Christopher finds him in the arms of a small child.

“You can’t just take a teddy bear from a grown man!” he scolds the young person.

The story will, of course, take Christopher back to the Hundred Acre Wood and reunite him with the other animals. Later on, it will bring four of them to his world and an encounter with Madeline, who, like her father, could use a refresher on how to enjoy herself.

That’s the main message of “Christopher Robin” — that you owe it to your own well being to find the fun in life, while nevertheless understanding there also are very important matters to which you must attend.

In the hands of the talented Forster — who with 2004’s “Finding Neverland” explored the world of another classic author from Great Britain, J.M. Barrie, and whose other directorial credits include “Monster’s Ball,” “Quantum of Solace” and “World War Z” — should appeal to children and adults alike. Like the best children’s movies, there is something for everyone in “Christopher Robin,” even if grownups are likely to find the story wholly predictable and possibly a bit slow. Again, though, that is part of its retro charm.

And the artists and effects teams involved with the film really have earned themselves a nice pot of honey. Pooh and his pals couldn’t look any more realistically like stuffed animals come to life; these aren’t shiny cartoon versions of the characters but believably furry walking-andtalking toys. Right down to Pooh’s simple dots for eyes, the designs have been done with great thought and care.

Along with Garrett, Cummings — who has experience voicing Pooh, Tigger and several other classic characters under the Disney umbrella, as these creations have been for decades — adds a good deal of charm with his voice work. For what it’s worth, Pooh and the goofy-bordering-on-manic tiger Tigger sound as if they are being voiced by decidedly different men.

Other solid voice work is turned in by Peter Capaldi (“Dr. Who”), as Rabbit, and Toby Jones (“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”), as Owl.

As for the humans, McGregor (“T2 Trainspotting” and the most recent season of FX’s “Fargo”) is his usual dependable self. His is an even more impressive performance when you remember that his digital co-stars were added in post-production.

While Atwell, who portrays Peggy Carter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is solid in a limited role, the young Carmichael (“Darkest Hour”) is effective as the justifiably frustrated 9-year-old Madeline.

At one point in “Christopher Robin,” as the titular character worries about having to let some of his company’s employees go, a sad Pooh asks Christopher if that’s what he did with him — let him go? He answers he guesses he did.

But, as he himself says and the movie proves, you can’t just take a teddy bear from someone, even a grown man.

DISNEY ENTERPRISES Adult Christopher Robin, portrayed by Ewan McGregor, and Winnie the Pooh, voiced by Jim Cummings, are shown in a scene from “Christopher Robin.”