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Goodbye Christopher Robin

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)

October. 13,2017
|
7.1
|
PG
| Drama History Family

The behind the scenes story of the life of A.A. Milne and the creation of the Winnie the Pooh stories inspired by his son Christopher Robin.

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Reviews

Ensofter
2017/10/13

Overrated and overhyped

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GazerRise
2017/10/14

Fantastic!

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Contentar
2017/10/15

Best movie of this year hands down!

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Tobias Burrows
2017/10/16

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

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kitellis-98121
2017/10/17

While not entirely perfect, this film is one that I will definitely watch again.It had strange resonances for me personally, as my grandmother was a famous and celebrated author, who used me as inspiration for several of her children's books, and also as a subject for one of her academic books for adults.During my early childhood, I spent many happy days playing imaginative games with my grandmother - always followed around by a photographer - and those games became the basis for her stories, with the photographs of me used to illustrate them. At the time I was quite happy about this, as it made me feel special, but I am now very well aware that I was being exploited.Like Christopher Robin, I was never asked permission to be in her books, nor was I ever paid (although I inherited a modest amount of money when she died, so I suppose that could be considered payment of sorts).Unlike Christopher Robin, I never resented the books I was in, and I never felt that my childhood memories had been stolen or commercialised. But my situation was never as drastic as his, and my grandmother's celebrity didn't even come close to that of A.A. Milne. However, there are enough parallels to have given me a few shivers while watching this movie.Others have commented on its excellence, so I won't belabour that point, except to say that I agree. As a film it is beautifully crafted and (for me anyway) endlessly re-watchable.I disagree with the negative comments about the stilted acting. If anything I felt they needed to be more stilted to be properly true to the period. I do agree that Margo Robbie's accent was uneven, but performance-wise I felt she did very well in what was perhaps the hardest role to perform convincingly.As others have mentioned, the best performances came from the two boys playing Christopher Robin, although I also particularly liked Stephen Campbell Moore's understated warmth, and - for the first time in her career- I actually found myself liking Kelly Macdonald, an actress who has irritated me in every other film in which I've seen her. Here she exudes warmth and tenderness, and in a well-pitched and technically difficult performance manages to display undercurrents of disapproval and sympathy to the audience without over-egging the pudding.The cinematography by Ben Smithard also bears special mention, bringing to the screen a subtle yet richly evocative atmosphere of nostalgia and childhood innocence without sacrificing realism or becoming overly stylised.In fact, one of this film's many technical merits is the fine balance it achieves between all its various flavours and ingredients; each one subtle and understated, yet combining to create a rich and satisfying whole.As an overall viewing experience it has much to recommend it, and very little about which to complain.

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jaynekranc
2017/10/18

I saw this film on a plane coming back from a trip to London, where oddly enough, I had been taken to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace by a tour guide named Alice. NOT a kid's film and I'm sure there was some misconception about that, but it's a wonderful film. Moves slowly in spots, but well acted and has a beautiful look to it. The mother was atrocious, and the dad misguided, and I don't know how realistic that was, but the film worked.

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Kirsty2515
2017/10/19

I wasn't overly sure what i was going to get when i sat down to watch this film. I'm a little sceptical when it comes to biopics, they can be very hit and miss but this was something else.The film is about the life of A.A Milne. It shows how Winnie the Pooh came to be but it doesn't become solely about that. The film mainly focuses on the changing relationship between Milne and his son Christopher Robin. How the closeness between a father and son helps Milne overcome his PTSD and how what started as an imaginary world built by a father and son to help them bond turns in to one of the biggest selling and most loved children's stories of all time. It gave an idea in to what life of a middle class family may have been like in the early 20th Centaury, how the "stiff upper lip" approach was taken by parents and how children's relationships with their Nannies were so important. As for the creation of Winnie the Pooh, the film shows just how the characters were created and how the idea's for them were developed, not just by Milne, but also by the real Christopher Robin, Mrs Milne and the family Nannie. It shows the price that the creation of Winnie the Pooh had on the family and on the childhood of Christopher Robin and how that followed him in to his young adult life. Another beautiful element of the film is the locations where they film. Especially the locations in Ashdown Forest. The scenes were breath taking. It was also lovely watching Milne and Christopher Robin playing Pooh sticks. The fact that they use replicas of the original toys was also a really nice touch. It was nice to be reminded that Winnie the Pooh wasn't always Disney.The script is fantastic and very well written. There are some very witty one liners and little jokes which make you chuckle. The WWI and WWII scenes are very impactive and make you think about the brutalities of War. The way the relationships between the characters are written keeps you fully in grossed in the film all the way through.The whole cast are brilliant, especially the performances given by Domhnall Gleeson and Will Tilston. Their chemistry on screen is heart-warming and adds to the brilliance of the film. Margot Robbie plays the stern English mother excellently and Kelly Macdonald's performance as the loving caring nanny plays opposite that superbly.Overall i would highly recommend this film to everyone. It is truly heart warming and touching. It will make you laugh, cry and want to read Winnie the Pooh all over again. Brilliant.

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zkonedog
2017/10/20

Whenever I'm judging a biopic film, I always see if it passes my test of having that "spark" for why it needed to be made into a live-action portrayal of the events (or maybe should have just been a documentary). For the first 2/3 of "Goodbye Christopher Robin", it didn't (or just barely) passed that test. Fortunately, the final act really redeems it by adding in some emotion that truly felt real.For a basic plot summary, this film tells the story of how author A.A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) conceived his Winnie The Pooh books by watching the playtime of his son Christopher Robin (Will Tilston). The movie extends that lens, however, by continuing past the publication of the books and focusing on the struggles of an adolescent Christopher (Alex Lawther) and how much he resented being "the real Christopher Robin".Like I said above, the first 2/3 of "Goodbye Christopher Robin" were "just okay", and that is at best. At times it felt a bit emotionless and plodding, and I wondered if perhaps this story wasn't quite exciting enough to be worthy of a live-action biopic. Perhaps a well-constructed documentary would do on the subject? It just didn't seem to offer one single really interesting thing that wasn't either already shown in the trailer or couldn't be guessed by common sense for how reality transpires.But then, in quite a turnaround, the film really focuses in on the struggles of Christopher Robin post-Pooh, and that's where things really pick up steam (especially when Lawther's performances as Robin begin). This is where the film breaks from being just a "straight Pooh origin story" (of which it is passable at best) to being a deeper examination of emotional themes between individuals. These are the scenes in the film where I really felt like I cared about the people on screen, instead of just being told a story I basically already knew.In terms of acting, things often feel a bit stilted at certain points. Both Gleeson and Robbie (playing Christopher's mother) are great actors, but they perhaps seem a bit odd for their respective roles here. Robbie's character shined much as as a "young mother" and declined as the film went on, whereas I felt Gleeson's performance actually stepped up a notch as he portrayed an older father. In a lot of ways, though, the cinematography steals the show here, what with all the wonderful shots of the English countryside as well the noir, if you will, of London of that time period.Like most children, I went through a Winnie the Pooh phase, and that's obviously why a film like this appeals to so many viewers. This one will never be an out-and-out classic, but it can still be enjoyed, especially by those who prefer a more straightforward approach to biopics. The last portions of the film really make up for the paint-by-numbers approach in the early goings, too.

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