I knew Christopher Robin would make me cry, but I did not expect to sob from start to finish. Christopher Robin might be Disney’s best live-action reboot yet.
Winnie the Pooh meant a lot to me growing up. Living far away from my grandmother, the rare times I got to spend with her were full of books — specifically the Winnie the Pooh stories by A. A. Milne. The Hundred Acre Wood was the first universe I longed to be a part of as a five-year-old; I dreamt of adventures in the woods with animal friends stuffed with fluff.
Of course, with time, love for any universe fades slightly and gets redirected towards a new fandom. But I’ve always had a little space in my heart for Pooh and his friends… and when the trailer for the Christopher Robin movie came out, I was stunned to find just how many emotions it awakened in me.
Related: Christopher Robin review: A movie of little brains but a lot of heart
We’ve been given many iterations of Winnie the Pooh over the years, but I don’t think any of them — since the 1970s animations, at least — quite managed to capture its soul like Christopher Robin did.
When I showed my grandma the trailer for the movie, her reaction was much different from mine. She was upset that they had stuck to the Disney version of Pooh, which she disapproves of — after all, the red shirt and the voice, things Pooh is famous for, are both Disney inventions that didn’t exist in the original books.
But to compensate for its creative license, Disney made sure to stay firmly grounded on the values of the original story, avoiding the more dramatic, drama-filled storylines of the most recent Pooh movies. The purity of its spirit and the simplicity of the plot, while apparently considered somewhat boring by some, was actually beautifully on point with what Winnie the Pooh is about. A. A. Milne didn’t write a complex story about complicated characters: he wrote a story about kind, pure-hearted creatures that took care of each other.
(And let’s admit it: our generation has been heavily influenced by Disney’s version of Pooh, perhaps even more so than the original books. It’s really hard to imagine them as separate entities.)
Christopher Robin follows A. A. Milne’s footsteps, sticking to a pretty simple storyline of fatherly redemption, work-focused vs. family and friends. Seen directly after the Mary Poppins Returns trailer, it could almost all be the same movie…but Pooh himself makes the movie his own.
Casting Ewan McGregor, who is already excellent at earnest, heartrending portrayals, definitely helps bring home the message of the film. But Christopher Robin would have been an absolute failure if it hadn’t managed to capture Pooh perfectly, with all his sweetness and his adorable nonsense.
Pooh has been depicted so lovingly that it almost hurts. From his childlike wading in honey puddles, to the profound insight in his eyes (how did they make them all so life-like?!), he fills the screen from the moment he appears, and it doesn’t feel like we’re getting to know a whole new character — it’s more like we’re witnessing the return of a beloved friend.
I daresay this is the most fitting reboot (spinoff?) Disney has done since they started doing live-action films. It feels fresh and original, because it’s something we’ve never seen before, but it’s also adorably familiar. The body is different, but the soul is the same.
As Pooh tells an aged Christopher Robin, “it’s still you looking out.”
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