Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronke Adekoluejo, Adrian Scarborough, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ken Nwosu, John Dagleish, Amanda Lawrence, Katy Carmichael, Orton O’ Brien, Tristan Sturrock, Jasmine-Simone Charles, Paul Chahidi, Simon Farnaby, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen, Toby Jones.
It is, with hindsight, easy to suggest that humanity in the 20th Century lost its way, that we as a collected species lost our wonder and our innocence to a new way of thinking, a rational that arguably had its genesis in the self-imposed, stiff upper lipped facade philosophy created by the Victorians and to which even now has eaten away at our ability to forget the dreams we had as children and the wondrous stories we could weave.
It has become a type of policy handed down by Government, sanctioned and approved by insidious minds, that to believe in anything other that the “holy” relic of Economy, is something akin to treason. You only have to hear the sneer in the voice as someone suggests that Art is nothing more than a passing fancy, it doesn’t pay the bills, to know exactly that they are indeed nothing more than stuffed bears with very little brains.
It is an age of personal innocence lost manifested as a group collective in which the film Christopher Robin stands out, the hero abandoned, thrown to the winds of the corporate machine and slowly sinking beneath the waves of bitter responsibility into which he has been thrust. It is an acceptance of innocence lost when we look to our own childhoods, perhaps less than idyllic, ones that might never have seen the sea, let alone the beauty in the forest, but one in which our imagination was given free-reign to explore and shape who we might have become.
Of course, the playful innocence never truly leaves us, but cynicism descends rapidly into view and even looking out of a train window becomes more of wondering how long till the destination arrives, than the marvel of seeing the world in a fast-moving collage of colour and unfolding scenes.
It is in this fast-moving world of heffalumps and woozles that Christopher Robin, played with gentle brilliance by Ewen McGregor, knows he has fallen into, the responsibility of war, of fatherhood and marriage having eroded the memories of his companions in the 100 Acre Wood, Piglet, Tigger, Eyeore and the ever-loyal Winnie-the-Pooh. A world without childhood loves, of made up stories and adventures is one of the greatest injustices, every child deserves to have such wonderful notions, every adult deserves to smile at their own foolish early interactions; for Christopher Robin, it is a lesson remembered as he helps his once adored playmate, find his own friends, and his reason to live again.
Christopher Robin is insightful anarchy wrapped up in the beauty of childhood dreams, a marvellous portrayal of what lurks in our own imagination, where even the downbeat blue donkey in us all can be the hero, where a bear with very little brains is the most intelligent creature in the forest, and the wood a place where we should preserve to keep in our hearts forever.
A beautiful tale, one of richness and simple, astonishing, brilliance!
Ian D. Hall