Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)

Goodbye Christopher Robin is the story of English writer A.A. Milne and his life post WW1, and how he stumbled upon the idea of his later success which was of course – Winnie the Pooh. There isn’t anything else to this story…

THAT ISN’T A FAULT THOUGH!

The film begins and we jump straight in to Milne’s life right after he comes back from the war and meet his wife, and begin to gain insight into the private life of him and his wife, and how his time away affected them both, and off we go on their journey. They move out of London, as the hustle and bustle is badly affecting Milne mentally, and productively, meaning he is unable to write. His wife falls pregnant and we then meet the inspiration behind his most famous work – their son, Christopher Robin.

The issue I have with films of this nature as always, is how true are some of these events, and how much are they exaggerated for dramatic effect? We won’t know, no one experienced this other than the characters that are being portrayed. So, I suppose the most important thing for this film is, how good were the cast? Could I connect with these characters? OH, GOD YES. 

I cannot fault the cast, I really believed there was a difficult father/son relationship there between Milne and his son, and I really felt for them both in many scenes. I could relate to the idea that a childhood had been stolen, and a Father didn’t understand or appreciate this at the time, and that a child couldn’t explain this when it was happening to them. Domhnall Gleeson was the absolute star of the show, without a doubt. His performance was incredible. I believed his struggle with quite obvious PTSD, I believed he struggled to look after a child, when he was suddenly asked to do this, I believed that the success he had brought him both joy, and sadness. It was a convincing performance and it did the ‘character’ justice, in simple terms. The performance of Margot Robbie in this, though also convincing and enjoyable, somewhat average. 

It was a truly enchanting story, it made me laugh, cry and generally entertained me. It made me realise why I enjoyed Winnie the Pooh so much as a child, yet also made me remember why I didn’t so much as I got older. It was heart-warming, and beautifully made. I just hope that it was somewhat a true representation of these non-fictional characters.

Daphne (Robbie) appeared to be was sickening, she infuriated me, which is good, if that is what you are trying to be, right? But something about it I didn’t enjoy. I feel like the intention was for her to be more powerful and more controlling, and I feel like Olive, Christopher Robin’s Nanny was more powerful. It’s like she was almost there… and then though nah that’ll do I’ll calm down. She was portrayed as a very selfish character, but there was nothing to explain this. Nothing that Milne did seemed to spur these actions on, so in a way it’s like her character should have made much more sense. Now, Will Tilston. Let’s talk about little Will. What a gem, I love it when a child is better at acting than an adult, and all I can really say is not only was he cute as a button, but he made me cry, and this kid is going to go far. There’s not much to say other than he was perfectly casted, I was really impressed by him.

The score in this film was as to be expected, it fitted beautifully, and if memory serves me correctly we obviously had original music made for Winnie the Pooh. The location helped a great deal with making this film look good, but I honestly don’t think that this would have made a difference to the story. I mean it made sense, it was nice to look at but there is nothing much more to say about that.

7/10 

CINEMATES - S