Goodbye Christopher Robin

The stories of Christopher Robin in Hundred Acre Wood with Winnie-the-Pooh and the others is woven into the fabric of many childhoods, and this film tells the story of A. A. Milne and the boy, C. R. Milne, who is born not long after A. A. has come back from the First World War, severely traumatised by his experience—and determined to write something to help prevent another war from breaking out.

In contrast to Milne’s (Domhnall Gleeson) sadness and torment, his wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) is flighty and very stiff-upper lipped. Only the men who’ve survived along with Milne understand how noises and lights can set off episodes of “shell shock”. However Daphne doesn’t have a good time giving birth, and the Milnes bring in a nanny, Olive (Kelly Macdonald), to look after the boy and keep him away from his father—who is supposed to be writing.

The point where Milne is brought out of his torpor by Christopher Robin are where the film is at its most charming and beautiful. The golden light, the father/son moment, and the imagination… it looks just like you’d imagine the origin of this story to look. And Ernest Shepherd (Stephen Campbell Moore) drops in to create the illustrations which are forever associated with the books. During this sequence the computer graphics merges the acting of Will Tilston as the boy with the illustrations. It is very effective, and presages the commercialisation of this family moment that drives the second half of the film. Christopher becomes embroiled in a nightmare of celebrity, with letters, interviews, photographs—including at the London Zoo with the black bear from Winnipeg that was the inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh. Christopher begins to resent the fact that his childhood has been sold off, and that he has become public property. Thus he sets to distance himself in a very strong-willed fashion.

The film is ultimately a joyful celebration of childhood but it is also about the wars of the last century and the peace between them. The failure of Milne’s connection with his son is heartbreaking, although it’s clear that the story has streamlined the reality to create a decent drama. Milne did write his anti-war book, and he wrote in support of World War II and spoke out against P. G. Wodehouse. Somehow the less you know about the history the more the film’s emotional final twenty minutes will work. 

Kelly Macdonald, who was in the film about JM Barrie years ago, is the unsung gem at the centre of this. Her role as a surrogate for parents who’re (for whatever reason) not around is heartwarming.  And Will Tilston looks exactly like Christopher Robin, and is very very good in the film. Margot Robbie’s performance is brilliant, although she isn’t especially likeable and is a nice evocation of what a mother of her position would have been like—and of course Gleeson captures the repressed man emerging from his pain in a remarkable way: his accent sounds pitch-perfect too. The film is full of contrasts between this long-ago time, and feelings and situations that seem remarkably of the present. But it is the evocation of the countryside and the boyish imagination in which all good things are possible that make this film a marvellously entertaining story.