Posted by I know that Christopher Robin came out a month ago so this review isn’t exactly timely, but it’s still being shown in theaters so I believe that I can still write about it. Anyways, I went into this movie with rather mixed expectations. I thought that this movie would be pretty good, but at the same time I was pretty sure that I had seen rather disappointing scores on various websites. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed.
WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW
I liked this movie. A lot. The overall story was a bit cliché, but it had enough little twists and changes that more than made up for it in my eyes. The plot follows Christopher Robin, played wonderfully by Ewan McGregor, who has to deal with the issues caused by putting his work before his family. This basic plot idea has been done time and time again, in part because it’s such an easy conflict to put in a movie, but the inclusion of Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, and all of Christopher Robin’s other friends changes everything up enough to make it feel more fresh and unique, at least for me.
The conflict of family vs work tends to just be resolved by the protagonist being put in a high stress situation where he or she eventually realizes that their family is far more important than work. In Christopher Robin, the initial set-up is the same: a father who is extremely dedicated to his job begins to become more and more distant from his family, eventually not being able to go on a trip that he planned. But, as soon as Winnie the Pooh enters the real world, things begin to take a bit of a turn. Instead of making Winnie the Pooh and friends a figment of Christopher Robin’s imagination or existing in some other metaphysical form, they are real, physical beings, and this adds a lot to the movie. One of the ongoing smaller conflicts is just trying to hide the fact that Pooh and friends are alive, because when people see them move or hear them talk, things tend to get a little crazy.
Once Christopher Robin meets Pooh again, he is forced to go on a journey back to where he grew up, so he can help Pooh find his friends. Christopher Robin eventually accomplishes this, but not after encountering a few obstacles. However, instead of this journey changing him, Christopher remains rather static and still leaves to deal with his job without saying a word to his family. It isn’t until a bit later that Christopher changes, and I think that it works very well for the movie and is rather realistic despite some of the movie’s fantastic moments. While on his little adventure in the Hundred Acre Woods, Tigger replaced the important papers that Christopher Robin needed for a meeting with sticks, stones, and other little mementos. At first I thought that this was kind of a weak final conflict, because if Christopher Robin ever looked inside his briefcase, he would have realized that the papers were switched. Instead, he just takes the briefcase and only finds out about it right before he has to present. I found this to be a bit unrealistic, because aside from the talking stuffed animals and the doorway to the Hundred Acre Woods, everyone’s actions and reactions to things were pretty realistic and normal.
However, this is all remedied by the ending, at least in my opinion. Christopher Robin’s daughter, Madeline finds Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Eeyore, who are all on a journey to get back to London and give Christopher Robin back his papers since Pooh told them how important the papers were. Madeline helps them and travels back to London alone with them. After a lot of confusion and running around, Christopher Robin and his wife Evelyn, who immediately rushed back to London in search of her daughter, eventually find Madeline, who has lost all but one of the papers. This is when Christopher Robin changes and I forgave the movie for the absurdity of this final conflict. Christopher Robin realizes that his family is far more important than his work. Besides, the one slip of paper that was saved is exactly what he needs to save himself and the company that he works for from going out of business, so everything ends happily and Christopher Robin and his family go off and play in the Hundred Acre Woods with Pooh and friends. I found the ending to be fine. It was happy and reminded me about the importance of family and childhood.
But, even though I enjoyed the story, that’s not what made me love the movie: it was the beautiful message and the way that it was done. I find it rare for movies to have incredibly deep and powerful messages, since movies are primarily made to tell stories, the message of the story isn’t always the most important part. Like I said earlier, the story of Christopher Robin is just fine, but its message on childhood and its importance is what really stood out to me, especially since I find myself looking back to my own childhood more and more as I come to accept my fast approaching adulthood.
In school right now, one of the classes that I’m taking is Film Study, and it has really gotten me to think about the lighting and cinematography of a movie. I found the cinematography in Christopher Robin to be absolutely amazing. Between beautiful nature scenes, great computer-generated images, a setting that genuinely felt real and authentic, and wonderful lighting, everything that I saw contributed wonderfully to the movie and its message. Something that really stood out to me was the juxtaposition of scenes in the beginning of the movie, showing Christopher Robin off fighting in the war while his wife raised their daughter at home. This also foreshadows how he will be rather distant later in life due to his work, and this is just one example of the wonderful symbolism and imagery that the movie expertly uses to great effect.
SPOILERS END
Christopher Robin is truly a movie for all ages. Children will enjoy the humor, adults will enjoy the relatable story, symbolism, cinematography, and everything in between, and even teenagers will enjoy a mix of these things. Something that the movie really did for me was it not only made the characters feel real, it felt authentic to the Winnie the Pooh books and movies that I loved as a young child. Seeing these familiar characters not only filled me with nostalgia, it made me relate to Christopher Robin. And in my opinion, this is what a movie should strive to do. I would highly recommend going to see this movie, especially if you grew up with Winnie the Pooh.
Broad Scope Entertainment 