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.
