'Christopher Robin' Is Adequately Heartwarming

I extremely love A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books, and I adore Disney’s animated adaptations (at one time, I memorized the opening song of the animated series).  So you can just imagine how thrilled I was when it was announced that Disney was making a live-action film where Ewan McGregor would play an adult Christopher Robin who reunites with his childhood friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.  I thought, with such interesting premise, the movie was going to be something special.

Christopher Robin – as the film came to be known (I believe that something like “Return to Pooh Corner” or “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood” would have been a catchier title) – sees the eponymous character (McGregor) now married to a woman named Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), and raising a young daughter named Madeline (Bronte Carmichael).  He has now become too immersed into his work, leaving him with little – if any – time to have fun with his family.  While spending the weekend preparing for a critical business meeting, he’s paid a surprising visit by an old friend whom he has never seen for many years – Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings).  Apparently, their Hundred Acre Wood friends – Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Tigger (Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Owl (Toby Jones), Rabbit (the Twelfth Doctor himself, Peter Capaldi!), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo), and Roo (Sara Sheen) – are missing, and Pooh needs Christopher Robin’s help to find them.

I like this film.  It’s utterly charming.  However, that is simply a given, considering its set of adorable characters.  What it’s short of, though, is depth.  Though it explores tender themes, the presentation is somewhat clichéd.  It’s just not as moving and thoughtful as I thought it would be.

Aside from my issue with its substance, I also have some trivial but personally bothersome nits to pick.  First, why is Gopher not in the movie?  Now, I understand that he’s not in the original A.A. Milne stories, but since this movie is essentially based on the Disney version, having him would have only been right.  And second, I can’t get rid of the itch of how much tremendously more endearing this movie would have been if it managed to get Kenny Loggins’ “House at Pooh Corner” as its theme music.

But, again, let me reiterate that I like this film.  Despite its deficiencies, it just has more good things going for it.   Ewan McGregor is a winning Christopher Robin, and his interactions with Pooh and the others are compellingly believable.  The CGI work is wonderful, and the voice work is terrific all around.  Moreover, the humor and tone unfailingly sustain a quality of pleasing sweetness from beginning to start.

In the end, Christopher Robin succeeds in warming hearts, but is unable to do very little beyond that.  Still, sometimes, that’s already enough.