Review: Christopher Robin

Even without coming on the heels of Goodbye Christopher Robin, which recounted the origins of the beloved Winnie the Pooh and his friends and the curse their creation brought upon the life of the boy that inspired them, Christopher Robin would still be a bit of an odd and jarring prospect. Simultaneously sweet and exasperating, it's a fictional look at how the adult Christopher Robin has to reconnect with his inner child in order to become a better parent.

On paper, this seems the right tack and there are moments onscreen that would support this narrative decision. Yet there's a discordant indecisiveness that runs through the film - does it want to explore how childhood and adulthood are not necessarily mutually exclusive states, or does it want to throw Pooh and the gang into some nonsensical shenanigans? The film tries to have it both ways but, in doing so, the silliness of the latter ends up undermining the strength of the former.

The film begins with a farewell as young Christopher Robin prepares to leave for boarding school. Though Christopher Robin assures Pooh that he shall never forget him, circumstances soon distance the two friends. Having survived life in boarding school and the death of his father, Christopher Robin grows up, meets and marries Evelyn (Hayley Atwell, severely underused), serves in World War II, returns home to take a job as an efficiency expert at Winslow Luggages, and becomes wholly calcified into the business of being an adult and having adult responsibilities, much to the detriment of his personal life. He barely has time for his wife and daughter, the latter of which is woefully bereft of the enchantment he had in his childhood.

When Christopher Robin has to once again put work in front of family and is unable to travel down with them to their country cottage in Sussex, near Hundred Acre Wood, it provides the perfect though completely random opportunity for him to cross paths with his childhood pal Pooh, who has awoken one morning to find all of his friends have seemingly disappeared. Believing Christopher Robin might be able to help, Pooh travels through Christopher Robin's tree and finds himself outside his home in London. Naturally, the 47-year-old Christopher Robin is shocked to see Pooh; naturally, Pooh proceeds to absentmindedly make a mess of things.

"I'm not a child anymore," Christopher Robin tells Pooh, "I'm not how you remember me." It's in small moments like these where Christopher Robin is most effective, especially since Ewan McGregor treads the line between frustrated adult and wistful kid at heart so well. Unfortunately, he's not asked to wade into such complex waters too much as Christopher Robin's trajectory is too defined and predictable. The screenwriters don't help matters with contrived and senseless plot devices - would a man who couldn't even make time to spend with his family really drop everything to help a toy bear, real or otherwise, look for his missing pals - and it's especially irritating when there is so much interesting material left unmined.

Christopher Robin

Directed by: Marc Forster

Written by: Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, Allison Schroeder; based on characters created by A.A Milne and Ernest Shepard

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Toby Jones, Peter Capaldi, Nick Mohammed, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen