Christopher Robin (2018)

Christopher Robin, AKA Winnie the Pooh and the Midlife Crisis, is an odd film in that its choice of audience appears to be middle-aged men.

Being a middle-aged man, this means that I really enjoyed the film. It was fun, funny, and had a nice tinge of nostalgia for someone who grew up with the Pooh stories.

I'm not sure how well it's going to do with a younger audience. I assume the filmmakers hope that the inclusion of Winnie the Pooh and friends will give it cross-generational appeal. I don't know how true that will be.

It appears to be trying to emulate Paddington in some regard. It doesn't succeed, in large part because Paddington was completely faithful to its source material, whereas Christopher Robin takes detours into a world that most definitely is not 100 Acre Wood.

It's not a wholly unsuccessfully detour - the scenes of Pooh and Christopher Robin navigating a London railway terminal were the best part of the film - but it does stray from the Pooh formula.

I was also not happy to learn in the film that Robin is considered Christopher Robin's surname, rather than a middle-name that is (in childhood) appended with his first name. It doesn't feel right (and is of course historically inaccurate.

I had a couple of additional minor issues with the film, but overall it was enjoyable, and I came out of the cinema feeling better than when I had gone in, which is enough to recommend it for me.