"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again"
-CS Lewis, to his Goddaughter, in the dedication of "The Lion the Witch and the
Wardrobe."
Sometimes movies are about a feeling. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I had the flu pretty bad, and my mother decided to take me to the video store to rent some movies to help me through being sick. One of the movies we rented was "The Many Adventures of WInnie the Pooh", and I loved it. Many years later, as I watched that same movie with my children, it evoked a nostalgia in me that is rare. So as I went to see "Winnie the Pooh" with my wife and kids, it had an unusual effect on me. This was the first time all 5 of us have gone to a movie in a theater, and it is fun to see it through their eyes.
As the same old theme song played (sung by a different artist), I was right back to my childhood, though I had my 8 year old sitting next to me. What this movie does very well is evoke the feeling I had as a kid, and it is gentle and sweet enough that no child would find anything troubling in it. In this way, it is a throw back. This is a hand drawn film, and it differs in almost every way from the Pixar films. There are no A-list movie stars providing voices, no too-cool-for school double entendres, and no bells, whistles, or loud explosions. No, this is a film that shows that simple, sweet story telling still can have a place in the arts. Furthermore, when it is done well, it has an effect on adults that it could never have an kids. This is part of what CS Lewis was saying, I think, in the quote above. Once one reaches a certain age (especially when one has children) all of the stories of one's childhood come back, and they return with more power than ever.
This movie pieces together parts from AA Milne's books. The one strength I thought the first film has was the way it told 3 different stories. This movie pieces many plots together to form one story, and I think the narrative suffers a bit, but the story itself is cute and innocent, so it doesn't suffer much. The main plot arc involves Eeyore losing his tail, and Christopher Robin and his friends trying to find him a new one. As the story moves on, one thing I will say is that this film shows the animals being totally lost without Christopher Robin, which shows a sweetness to their world that the original film didn't have.
My world is immersed in Winnie the Pooh right now. The children are devouring the audio books and audio dramas, and they are in love with this world. I'm glad. The children need simple and imaginative fables just like they need grand drama and adventures in their lives. The sight of little Christopher Robin in his school uniform evokes something. It invokes the fleeting nature of childhood, and the stuffed animals signify that as well. School signifies an end to Christopher Robin's endless world of play and doing nothing. That time will end for my children soon enough. Until then, I'm glad I have stories like this to share with them.
