CHRISTOPHER ROBIN: A Magical, Yet Grounded Character-Driven Drama and A Darn Good Pooh Movie

Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Drama

Produced by: Brigham Taylor, Kristin Burr

Directed by: Marc Forster

Written by: Alex Ross Perry, Allison Schroeder

Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Toby Jones, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo           

Runtime: 104 minutes                                           

SYNOPSIS: 

Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), now a middle-aged man, has lost all sense of imagination. He’s so caught up with work that he rarely spends any time with his family (Hayley Atwell & Bronte Carmichael). Until one fateful day, he encounters one of his childhood friends, a talking teddy bear called Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings), who then takes him on a magical journey towards rediscovering the inner child in him. 

REVIEW: 

Christopher Robin is Disney’s sixth motion picture adaptation of A.A. Milne’s famous Winnie-the-Pooh children book series and the studio’s first in live action format. Inspired particularly by Steven Spielberg’s live action rendition of the Peter Pan mythology in Hook (1991), Disney decides to make the main human character Christopher Robin older. By doing so, those who have seen Hook might find similar plot beats between Spielberg’s film and the Marc Forster-directed film. 

Like the late Robin Williams’ Peter Pan, Ewan McGregor’s version of Christopher Robin is an adult figure who has simply forgotten what it’s like to be a child. At one point of the story, he also stumbles across his childhood friends, who helps remind him of the things he’s been missing out on. So far, Christopher Robin looks like a Hook remake. However, it is through the screenplay’s grounded approach to the source material where the similarities stop. 

Whereas Hook brought the real world characters to its fantastical settings, Christopher Robin does it the other way around. On the one hand, this is still a story where two worlds coexist, one of which is Hundred Acre Wood, a fantastical place with a tree-shaped time portal to the real world and a bunch of animal characters that can talk. In other words, it’s a Winnie the Pooh movie. On the other, this is also a very human, character-driven drama, where the fantastical elements merely function as a way to necessitate an internal change in the main character’s behavior. 

Sure, there is a period in the film where it tries to give a fantastical reason as to why Pooh and his motley crew suddenly reappeared in Christopher Robin’s life with the whole Heffalump subplot. Yet, that’s not the real reason why they’re there. Firstly, the film barely spends that much time in Hundred Acre Wood. Secondly, the thing the gang feared of, the Heffalump, is nothing more than a concept, save for a few scrawled drawings of an elephant-like creature here and there to give it some physical form. At the end of the day, they’re there to help Christopher Robin fight the monster within him: life priorities. 

Throughout his adult life, he is a man who can’t make up his mind on the things he should set his eyes on. To him, excelling in one thing ultimately means excelling in the other, when, in reality, he can’t always have it both ways. What’s at stake by then is something as small-scale yet simple as prioritizing work or family, and this makes his journey all the more relatable and personal. 

Even the way Forster presents moments of the character rediscovering his imagination lends credence to the narrative’s character-driven approach. One scene that really stands out is Christopher Robin’s pretend fight with the Heffalump, a scene that consists only of him just playacting, kicking and punching an invisible force in comical fashion. There is even a moment where the ever-depressed Eeyore (voiced by Brad Garrett) chimes along with a few growls, trying to make the fight seems convincing as Christopher Robin’s other animal friends are nervously hiding inside a log. 

It is a scene that relies more on the actor’s body language and facial expression to visualize the idea of a person finally rediscovering his imagination, yet it is effective in the sense that Forster understands the true meaning of imagination. Despite every film’s attempt to decipher imagination, the human’s wildest imagination is practically indecipherable. Forster’s more subtle, restrained handling of the imagination sequence allows for even the smallest moments to feel magical in its adherence to realism. 

There is also an interesting narrative decision Christopher Robin took regarding the role of everyday objects in the main character’s growth. There is actually a recurrent arc in the film dedicated to Christopher Robin having to choose between his briefcase and a red balloon. It might seem irrelevant at first, but as the film progresses, the case and balloon slowly transform into characters of their own in the terms of its emotional impact to the story. 

From then on, random moments like Christopher Robin stepping on his suitcase repeatedly or maybe a throwaway line of dialogue like “is your briefcase more important than a balloon?” take a much different and deeper meaning in correlation to what the main character is going through. There is really no better metaphor to Christopher Robin’s internal struggle with work and family than by comparing them with a suitcase and a balloon. Every small decision he makes regarding which one of the objects he chooses to keep and which one he leaves behind suddenly carries a much more emotional weight than previously imagined. 

A drastic departure from the smooth, well-polished character design of its 2D cartoon counterparts, Pooh’s latest iteration has a much more rough-around-the-edges, almost oddly world-weary look about its characters. Here, the real-world version of the Pooh characters are fashioned more like stuffed dolls rather than woodland animals. Here, unusually, they resemble the British Paddington bear more than ones from the Pooh mythology.  Yet, it’s the Paddington-inspired, furry design that ingrains the CGI characters to reality. It is as if Pooh and his motley crew exist in the same universe and breathe the same air as the humans and somehow, it is acceptable with the way the film integrates CGI into the real world setting. 

Beyond the visuals, the character design lends a lot to the film’s comedic aspect. The way Christopher Robin sets up some of the gags feels like it’s lifted off straight from the Toy Story films. Any time Pooh and the gang are around the humans, except for Christopher Robin, they play dead to make themselves look like a doll, similar to the toys’ reaction in Toy Story. And so often, the crux of the gags lies on that little bits of moment where the characters fail to maintain their doll-like conceit. One cannot help but laugh every time one character’s struggle to resist their urge to respond to the real world (speaking or moving). One cannot help but laugh at how the film gloriously captures the human’s shocked faces at the realization that these “dolls” are alive.

If there are some nitpicks with Christopher Robin, the film does take quite awhile to get to the Pooh storyline. Basically, its entire first act is meant to get the audience up to speed with what the adult Christopher Robin is up to with both his work life and family life, and how the conflicts arise from each. It’s a chain of expository moments that is necessary to give some context to Christopher Robin’s growth throughout the film, but there are times when the first act can feel like it goes on and on and on. Besides one flashback sequence involving Pooh and the child version of Christopher Robin, it does require some patience to finally see a lot more Pooh. 

And, a classic Achilles heel for most Disney family affairs, Christopher Robin can sometimes struggle with crafting sincere emotional moments. There are many effectively endearing moments that will surely make the audience tear up, but most of them can feel a bit too contrived for its own good. So often, the film puts emphasis on musical scores to dictate the audience on what to feel during certain scenes, which offers glimpses of the director Forster not trusting his audience. 

Also, Christopher Robin has probably one of the most misguided moral lessons for a kids’ movie. There is a line in the film that Pooh says, which goes, “doing nothing leads to something.” It’s a message with a sweet intention that can only work in service to this film’s narrative. It’s emotionally touching because it serves as the character’s revelatory moment when he starts to change his perception about his life priorities. In real life though, it is not exactly the type of life lesson an adult figure would impose upon their young ones to prepare them for the real world. Don’t try this at home, kids! 

Ewan McGregor displays versatility with his ability to juggle both the comedic and dramatic aspect of the story. Playing the adult version of Christopher Robin, it is easy to buy into him being this man with practically no childhood, and yet, also equally as easy to buy into his latter transformation to being a man-child. That speaks volume of the Scottish actor’s range. He can go from the kind of pessimistic person who tells someone that there is more to life than honey and balloon to one who bravely jumps into a lake (even if it’s only knee-deep for Christopher Robin’s adult-shaped body) to rescue his fairy tale-esque childhood friend in a snap and make the character shift less jarring. 

 

McGregor is also the rare actor out there who can make a live-action character’s relationship with the cartoon character look and feel convincing. He spends quite a lot of this film literally interacting with a talking, CGI teddy bear, but he’s so committed to the illusion that he is interacting with a real person that one cannot help but feel the same way. As a result, the interplay between the two flows naturally and even the physical live action-meets-animation cross looks so seamlessly done. One moment of Pooh stroking Christopher Robin’s wrinkled face becomes deeply moving due to the CGI work and McGregor’s imagination-driven acting.

Still, the chemistry would not have worked without Pooh’s long-time voice actor Jim Cummings. There’s really no one who can best express the character’s earnest and gullible spirit besides Mr. Cummings himself. His voice brings so much warmth, nostalgia and child-like glee to the table that’s in line with the lore’s kiddy, imaginary universe. 

Hayley Atwell plays a supporting role here as Christopher Robin’s wife Evelyn. She is the person who is trying to help bridge the gap between Christopher Robin and Madeline’s father-daughter relationship as well as the one who’s constantly reminding Christopher Robin to reexamine his life priorities. Her performance is pretty much in tone with the film, fun and charming.  She has this playful spark with the way she creates chemistry with the other two actors (Ewan McGregor & Bronte Carmichael). She also sells the idea of this mother/wife who sees the world in child-like, imaginary manner. 

However, it's the young actress Bronte Carmichael who is the true female standout here as Christopher Robin’s daughter Madeline. She gives such a profound yet real child performance that is inherent to the character’s deep, emotional arc. Madeline already has to deal with a lot for a person her age. Mirroring her father Christopher Robin’s childhood, she is prematurely forced to sacrifice playtime for high academic achievements, hence robbing her off any sense of child-like imagination. If there is any left, it is often restricted to reading books. 

Yet, what’s beautiful is how she is willing to risk it all to gain something she believes to be her interpretation of having a normal childhood: spending more time with her father. Her nagging desire for her father’s attention makes her a character people can relate to, and as a result, every moment of joy and frustration seems so palpable. 

She also has a great deal of screen time with Pooh and his motley crew, and proves that she works well with CGI. She gives the film its much-needed child perspective of child-like wonder. Even when the audience had seen Pooh and his friends before through Christopher Robin’s eyes, it is still a fresh experience seeing them for the first time through Madeline’s eyes, in which the actress conveys naturally. She even gives every bit of her sweet, gentle relationship with Pooh and his motley crew its necessary, human-like sense of chemistry. 

CONCLUSION: 

Christopher Robin is a magical, yet grounded character-driven drama about a grown up man’s rediscovery of his imagination and the inner child in him. And it’s also a darn good Winnie the Pooh movie. Pooh and his motley crew remains as adorable as they were in their cartoon iterations, but much more ingrained to reality this time around, thanks to the smooth blend of the CGI and the real-world setting. 

Score: 8.5/10