Christopher Robin is now an adult and he has work on his mind all the time. He hardly has any time to spend with his family, until his childhood friend, Winnie the Pooh, visits him and helps him discover the joy of life.
Blaine: There’s more than one adventure in this movie and it took five screenwriters to put together this story. At the beginning of the film, Christopher Robin’s life is told through a book, showing parts of his life as he gets older through the chapters. Christopher Robin has been through a lot in his life. After he said goodbye to Pooh Bear and the other characters from the Hundred Acre Wood, he went to boarding school, then his father died shortly after and he had to be the man of the house. He went off to war and saw a lot in battle. Now Christopher Robin has a huge responsibility to help save his co-workers' jobs and he must do that by spending all his time working. He’s too focussed on work that he hardly has any time to spend with his wife, Evelyn, and daughter, Madeline. Then Pooh shows up and becomes a little bit of a pain in the neck for Christopher Robin at first. Christopher Robin is taking things too seriously because he’s an adult now and being an adult means you have a lot of responsibilities, but Pooh hardly takes anything seriously. He enjoys life too much. The only time he would take something seriously would be if there was a situation that was very important. While Christopher Robin tries to get Pooh back home, Pooh wanders off, fooling around and wanting a balloon. He’s almost like a child Christopher Robin has to look after.
Christopher Robin manages to get Pooh back to the tree where the door is to get back to the Hundred Acre Wood, but Christopher can’t ignore the fact that Pooh still needs help finding the others after they went missing. He also notices that Pooh is looking down. His conscience is telling him “the right thing to do would be to help Pooh”. There’s also the fact that Pooh loves Christopher Robin very much and he wants to spend time with him again. Pooh becomes Christopher Robin’s guide to bringing the joy and fun back into his life. Christopher Robin finds the others, but they don’t believe it’s him. He must prove to them that he is Christopher Robin by pretending again. He pretends to be fighting a Heffalump, a scary elephant, and he explores his fun side while doing it.
Christopher Robin realizes that friendship is important and that he hasn’t had or will ever have a friend like Winnie the Pooh. Pooh is a lovable character and he’s so cute and warmhearted that you just want to give him a big hug. Christopher Robin also realizes through his own words that his daughter, Madeline, means the world to him while telling that to Pooh Bear. After everyone is found the adventure doesn’t stop there. Christopher Robin has the best time he has had in years. It’s always nice to take some time off from work and enjoy life while you still can. But things get serious for Christopher Robin again the next morning when he realizes he has to get back to work and do that presentation on how his co-workers can keep their jobs. Christopher Robin's work papers get left behind and this is one of those situations Pooh takes seriously because he knows Christopher Robin will be in big trouble if he doesn’t have those papers. Pooh must go back to London and Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger join him on his quest. It’s also Madeline’s turn to have an adventure and spend time with her father’s childhood friends.
When Marc Forster was a child he had to find ways to entertain himself because he didn’t have TV. And as a director he likes to make movies that are about inspiration. He’s also good at putting a lot of heart into movies like this one. When Marc Foster read the script for “Christopher Robin” it was clear to him how this movie should look. Marc also wanted to bring the spirit of “Winnie the Pooh” into “Christopher Robin”. He really got into the message of the story and that is we all lose our inner child at one point and sometimes we have to find it. Another message is that friendship is important.
Marc studies actors so he knows what type of role they are suitable for in a movie he is making. Marc had worked with Ewan McGregor before on a movie called “Stay” and they became good friends after that. They had been trying to find another project to do together, but there wasn’t one they could both agree on until “Christopher Robin”. Marc knows that Ewan is an actor who can perform both drama and comedy and so that is why he knew he was perfect for this project. Marc described his vision for “Christopher Robin” in full detail to Ewan and Ewan couldn’t resist turning down a project like this. This was the first movie fans were going to see Christopher Robin as an adult. Ewan has played iconic characters at a different age before so it wasn’t that difficult for him. Plus the script helped. What was written in each page described the character’s personality. Ewan McGregor, Hayley Attwell and Bronte Carmichael would perform with stuffed animals of Winnie the Pooh and the others on the set and then later the visual effects department would digitally add facial expressions and some movements to the footage.
Voice actor Jim Cummings has done the voice of Pooh since 1988 and he was blessed to be returning as the iconic character again. Jim would watch all the earlier “Winnie the Pooh” cartoons with his younger brother and even though Jim was a bit too old for Pooh, still he thought these were great cartoons. Then he became a voice actor and one of his talents as a voice actor was being able to make his Pooh Bear voice sound a lot like Sterling Holloway’s. Sterling Holloway was the voice of Pooh Bear in the earlier animated features and after he retired, Jim felt that it was his responsibility to continue Pooh’s legacy by doing the voice of him. So Jim would do the voice of Pooh whenever Disney had a new adventure for him. At the last minute, Jim was called in to do the voice of Tigger in “Christopher Robin" because the actor who was supposed to do the voice, Chris O’ Dowd, wasn’t working out. When Jim Cummings first got the job of doing the voice of Winnie the Pooh in the late 80s he didn’t expect to do the voice of Tigger as well, but he did a good Tigger too.
Brad Garrett has a great deep voice that you just love listening to. Brad grew up loving animation and he still loves it today because it was his way of escaping from reality and getting sucked into these stories. Brad was offered to do the voice of Eeyore 30 years earlier in a TV special Disney was going to do and he was all for it. Thing was Brad was doing stand-up around that time and all of a sudden he had to do a tour, so he had to cancel doing the voice Eeyore, which was very disappointing to him. But lucky thing for Brad he was given a second chance in doing the voice of Eeyore and he was very excited about it. For the other characters like Owl and Rabbit, Marc had actors he had worked with before like Toby Jones and Peter Capaldi (Doctor Who), even though they were small parts.
When Christopher and Evelyn go looking for Madeline after she goes missing, he realizes that family comes first. Madeline slips and the wind blows them away. But that doesn’t matter because all that matters to Christopher is his daughter. However Christopher still has to be the hero for his co-workers and there is a solution to it through just one paper that got left behind.
What’s tricky about shooting a movie in London is the weather. It wasn’t easy for Marc to shoot “Finding Neverland” in London because the weather was terrible most of the time. Marc had better luck with the weather for “Christopher Robin” because it was exactly how he wanted it to be for each scene they shot. London was always foggy and the spot they shot the Hundred Acre Wood was supposed to start off as foggy when Christopher Robin enters it for the first time in years. The fog is supposed to show that things are boring. But when joy starts to come back in Christopher Robin’s life, things lighten up. Marc Foster felt very lucky when they shot the last scene of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh sitting on a log. The day started off as cloudy and it was like that all day. But while they were prepping up to shoot the scene the sky was clearing up a bit and the sun was setting, which made the lighting in the shot perfect. It felt like magic to Marc. Christopher Robin hardly has any friends in his life, except for Pooh Bear and the others from he Hundred Acer Wood. In the end, Evelyn and Madeline are not only introduced to the other characters, but Christopher Robin’s favorite place to go as a kid, the Hundred Acre Wood.
Marc Forster has admired songwriter Richard M. Sherman for years. Richard has written songs for a lot of Disney movies, including the “Winnie the Pooh” cartoons. He is the man behind songs like the “Winnie the Pooh” song and “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers”. Marc felt there should be a new song by Richard for “Christopher Robin”, so he called him up telling him about the project and sent him the script. Richard had a lot of ideas for songs as he read through the script, but Marc only felt one was necessary. However that changed when Richard sung Marc some songs he wrote over the phone. Marc got goosebumps just listening to them and then he had tears in his eyes. It only took him two days to write those songs. Richard proves that he can be useful at the age of 90. There were only two songs Marc wanted to be in the film because he couldn’t find a place for the other two. One of the songs that got to be in the movie is the one the characters sing for Christopher Robin at the beginning, “Goodbye, Farewell”. And during the end credits Richard plays the piano on the beach while singing the song, “Busy Doing Nothing”.
My rating on “Christopher Robin” is five out of five stars
