Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review | Tagged: film, goodbye christopher robin, Review

Goodbye Christopher Robin Review: Very Slow Moving At Times But Ultimately Interesting

Goodbye Christoper Robin has a hard time balancing the joy of the creation of Winnie the Pooh and the sadness that followed.

Director: Simon Curtis
Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at the life of author A.A. Milne and the creation of the Winnie the Pooh stories inspired by his son C.R. Milne.

While great stories are timeless, the story about how they were made is often lost to history. It's why everyone knows a Shakespeare play but there are debates as to whether or not he actually wrote them. In this case we're getting to know the story behind one of the most timeless children's characters of all time; Winnie the Pooh. Goodbye Christopher Robin is here to tell us the story of how this lovable character came to be, and it's not a happy tale at all. A.A. Milne (Domhnall Glesson) was a soldier during World War I and he is not dealing with it very well. While they never call it PTSD, that's exactly what he is suffering from. We see him have flashbacks and panic attacks. He decides to take his wife Daphne (Margot Robbie), his son Billy (Will Tiston), and Billy's Nanny Olive (Kelly Macdonald) out to the country. Milne is struggling to do any writing and eventually Daphne heads back to London as a way to try and convince her husband to write. Then Olive needs to leave and we see an award Milne having to care for his son for the first time in his life.

What follows is the sad story of father who doesn't know how to deal with his kid very well. Billy, whose full name is Christopher Robin, asks his dad to write him a story. Milne writes a poem and sends it to Daphne to try and convince her to come home. She submit the poem to a magazine and Winnie the Pooh is born. However, the stories have a little boy called Christopher Robin in them and as the story takes off it takes over the family's lives. Daphne, always eager for the finer things in life, is completely fine with pushing her son in front of cameras. Billy starts to resent the spotlight and even the character. We're watching a deeply troubled family Daphne ignores her son unless it's convenient for her and Milne is oblivious until it's much too late.

This is not the children's movie that some of the trailers are making it out to be. It's about a lost childhood and two severely broken parents. Robbie continues her tradition of being really goof at playing a horrible person. Gleeson is convincing as Milne and Tiston is all wide eyed innocence even if you can see it fading. The problem comes down to the pacing and the tone. Goodbye Christoper Robin feels more than half over by the time Winnie the Pooh is created and it bounces around from harsh post war reality and starry eyed idealism that we know won't last. It also seems to brush by a lot of the later points in the lives of the Milne family with a bunch of flash forwards that feel like the movie is sprinting to the finish line.

Goodbye Christopher Robin has some appealing performances but even for a biopic it is a little too slow-moving and scattershot. It's absolutely not a kids movie but for people who love to know the history of famous literature it's interesting enough.

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