Kevin's Watch

This Ewan McGregor starring film, following hard on the heels of Goodbye Christopher Robin takes a much more Disney orientated view of how the world should work out and eschews the damaged and unhappy story of the eponymous lead character for a fairly tale fable in which every thing works out.........

well - you'll have to see it won't you!

But seriously, Disney have come up with an odd mix here that seemed to me unsure about who its target audience is meant to be. Neither 'wacky' enough to keep the kids sitting still for two hours nor deep enough in its story to satisfy adults, it sits in a hinterland somewhere between within no real target audience in sight. That said however, the film is beautifully shot and well acted by its human cast. But as expected, the stars of the show are always going to be Pooh and his buddies - and these are (despite the odd choice to use voice-overs in american accents) excellently rendered. The woollen puppets fit into the film's slightly nostalgic style perfectly and transport from the Hundred Acre Wood to the 'real world' of Christopher Robbin's crumbling adult life surprisingly well. One observation I would make however. Anyone who has ever read Milne's account of the parting of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh will be aware that it is a piece of writing of almost unequalled pathos in any other literary fiction, adult or children's. Alas the film utterly failed to replicate this, although the scene was covered in the film's opening minutes. I don't know; perhaps this was deliberate. Coming at the end of the books I guess it was in place for such a strong scene - perhaps it was decided that it was simply too powerful for the film's beginning

Sadly, peter, much of the audience for the film will have never cracked open Milne's books (which still are on my shelves). More's the pity.

While you feel the Hundred Acre Wood gang overshadowed the live actors, I thought the human parts were well-cast and well-played, within the limits of the story they were given. As you say, the film is visually impressive.

The issue with the character voices speaking in Yank diction is an artifact of so much of the audience expecting the voices used in the old Disney cartoons. That present-day voice actors so faithfully recreated those viscerally remembered voices was another high point.

Menolly's number 1 quibble was that the grown Christopher Robin was addressed professionally as Mr. Robin. Her point was that the original Christopher Robin was A. A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin Milne. She felt he ought to be addressed as Mr. Milne. Again, we are dealing with an audience for whom such detail holds no interest, and I can't fault the filmmakers for not bringing details that do not advance the narrative nor bind the viewer into the story.

Meanwhile, Dam-sel and I amused ourselves with ad-libs of young Obi-Wan and Agent Carter lines in place of dialog between Christopher and his wife.