Goodbye Christopher Robin

 

Thanks to Gillian Southgate for the following film review:

 I’m more inclined to criticise this film than praise it, though it is moving in places. The child playing Christopher Robin is very good, helped by his naturalness and a set of dimples that must endear him to his audience. His father is played by an Irishman who presents Milne as almost unrelentingly wooden. His mother is an Australian actress got up to look like a 1950s film star, instead of the shingled flapper she is meant to be. The casting here wasn’t inspired. I didn’t get a chance to look at the credits long enough to see how much American money was put into the making of the film, but it was certainly dressed to suit an American audience, with views across the Ashdown Forest lit with a weird golden glow that seemed more California than the High Weald. The rose garden of the Milnes' house was hugely over-the-top for the time – lush pillar roses and swags of wisteria. But what will sell the film is its confirmation of a view often held abroad that most Englishmen are stiff-upper-lipped, eccentric or psychologically-damaged. One of the strengths of the plot is the commercial exploitation of Christopher Robin. Another is the way we are allowed to watch Eeyore, Pooh and the rest take shape in Milne’s own mind. This process works as a device to help him heal after the trauma of being in the trenches. The winning performance by a mile goes in my view to the actress who plays the nanny; she makes the film the tear-jerker it’s bound to be for thousands of women the world over.