PADDINGTON 2
Four reasons why Paul King’s marmalade opus warmed our hearts
Paul King talks about cinema’s kindest hero.
THE BEAR
A huge part of Paddington 2’s appeal lies in its central character. Kind, generous, trusting, eager to help others at his own expense, Michael Bond’s creation feels like a blueprint for how we should behave. Though it doesn’t seem to be working. “Ever since the film came out, the world has become a crueller and more misanthropic place,” says King. “It is a dark time in Windsor Gardens. Mr Curry [Peter Capaldi] has built a wall.” Yet King admits that making Paddington work as a protagonist isn’t easy. “He’s not a traditional hero, he’s almost a saintly figure, bumbling his way through life.” Much of the drama comes from placing him in interesting situations, or pitting him against larger-than-life foes.
THE BADDY
In Hugh Grant’s Phoenix Buchanan, a supercilious failing actor who frames Paddington for theft, Paddington 2 has a truly great villain. King didn’t have to think hard when he was casting — in early drafts, the character was written as ‘Hugh Grant’ — but he was surprised by the extent to which Grant embraced the tone of the movie. “In the court scene where he’s asked, ‘Do you swear to tell nothing but the truth?’, we had written something like, ‘Indeed I do!’ Just slightly pompous,” recalls King. “We did three or four takes, and then Hugh says, ‘I’ve got something,’ and did the, ‘May my entrails be plucked forth and bound about my neck should I deceive.’ I went, ‘Okay, we’re going to use that one.’”
THE PRISON
After being framed, Paddington is shunted off to the slammer, which turns the movie into a prison flick unlike any other. ‘The Pawshank Redemption’, if you will, sees Paddington win the hearts and minds of his fellow inmates, including Brendan Gleeson’s Knuckles Mcginty, and transform the grey building into a bright-pink paradise-cum-tearoom. “It’s a good position for Paddington,” says King. “He doesn’t have to be so ‘front-foot’. It’s about balancing the tone. One of the last conversations I had with Michael Bond [who died in 2017] was about the tone of the prison. He was anxious that it didn’t feel too gritty. But I thought there could be a happy, jolly prison where Paddington could fit in.”
THE ENDING
The common misperception of Paddington 2 is that it’s a 90-minute case of the warm and fuzzies. Actually, it’s akin to a modern It’s A Wonderful Life, with King and co-writer Simon Farnaby heaping misery upon the little bear from the off. Only at the end, after Paddington has almost drowned, does catharsis come as his beloved Aunt Lucy shows up at Windsor Gardens, brought there by the local community banding together. And, as Paddington embraces his aunt and says, “Happy birthday, Aunt Lucy,” there’s not a dry eye in the house. “We did want to make people cry,” says King, “but in the nicest possible way.” King had the ending from day one, but it didn’t come together properly until the last moment. “The last line was a note from [producer] David Heyman. I didn’t even want to see Aunt Lucy. This was my attempt at art, to have the door open and light from the outside world wash over Paddington’s face.”