Dir. Simon Curtis (2017)
Rated PG Warning: this is a biopic! Apparently that wards some people off. They are kind of different from other movies and they give off a different feel (definitely not meaning it's bad). For some reason, this didn't really feel like a biopic though. It felt like just a plain old movie. It follows the story of Alan Milne, the creator of the Winnie the Pooh series. I grew up reading those books, but never knew the back story to them or how they ever came to be. I am kind of actually really bummed about it after watching the movie. Not that it ruins the books, but it definitely puts a damper on everything. Milnes (Domhnall Gleeson), suffering from severe PTSD after WWI, moves with his wife Daphne (Margot Robbie) and his son, real name Christopher Robin but goes by Billy Moon. As a writer, he needs the peace and quiet to think of his next idea. It is in this small house where he finally becomes close with his young son, because he had never been around him before as both the parents left the job of actual parenting to a governess, Nou. As Milne starts spending more and more time with his son, he steps into Billy Moon's world of imagination and playtime with his favorite stuffed animals: a bear, a tiger, piglet, kangaroo, and a donkey. This is where he gets the idea to write a children's book with Christopher Robin as the main character featuring all of his stuffed animals as actual animals with unique personalities and names. The books blow up, and in his moment of fame Milnes becomes a huge jerk. He uses his son for publicity and doesn't really let him have a childhood anymore because he's always taking him to press tours and interviews instead of letting him stay at home and play. This is actually heartbreaking, because all that Billy Moon wanted was a relationship with his father and to play with him. He grows up and goes to boarding school, where he's brutally bullied because of his role of Christopher Robin, and then he goes on to enlist in the military. At this point, he is almost completely estranged from his parents. When he is sent home, he tells his father how much he ruined his childhood and how much he resents him for it. Things end with the relationship slightly bettering with Milnes trying to rebuild a genuine relationship between the two. This movie was OK. All I could think about was how sad the actual backstory was. The ending was subpar for how the entire movie went, but I guess that's the point of a biopic. They're not really making up the plot or the ending, they're just retelling history through a film. The performance of the actors in this movie was pretty great. I particularly liked Gleeson as Milnes. I've seen him in a few movies here and there (including a favorite of mine, About Time, which does not get the praise that it deserves) He was so cute in that movie and lovable, and he went to a mentally ill PTSD suffering horrible parent in this movie. He was great! He really came off as emotionally unavailable. Margot Robbie was good as Daphne, but I've seen her in better movies. It was kind of odd and surprising that she was in this movie. I don't know why, I guess I just didn't really see her as being in this kind of movie? That doesn't really make sense but it just felt odd. Her acting was great, nonetheless. It wasn't a huge part, because the movie really just focused on the father and son. Going back to that: the story was sad, but I guess there wasn't really anything else to predict. Milnes had PTSD from the war, and he was so focused on that and his fear of another war that there wasn't enough room for him to focus on anything else, let alone being a father. The movie made it predictable that he would be a pretty bad parent. The title itself seems sentimental and cute upon first glance, but it's actually a real bummer when you watch the movie.
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AuthorCasey Land Archives
January 2018
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