Director: Simon Curtis
Screenplay: Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Simon Vaughan
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Kelly Macdonald, Will Tilston, Alex Lawther, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Running Time: 107 minutes
Genre: Period drama, biopic
Playwright AA Milne (Gleeson), traumatised by his experiences in the First World War, has difficulty relating to his socialite wife Daphne (Robbie) and his young son Christopher Robin (Tilston as a child, Lawther as an adult). He also has trouble restarting his writing career. Moving to a rural area in southern England with his family and Christopher Robin's nanny (Macdonald). Milne becomes inspired by his son playing with his stuffed toys and starts writing the "Winnie-the Pooh" stories. However the success of the books comes at terrible personal costs for Milne and Christopher Robin.
This film about the creation of the beloved "Winnie-the-Pooh" stories is not such a sickly-sweet confection as it might have been, and as it might look from some of the advertising. This is actually quite dark, AA Milne suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder, he and his wife cannot really relate to Christopher Robin (it's hinted that Daphne didn't really want a child, but thought that a baby might cheer up her husband) and it is really his nanny that raises the child (although I think, at the time, that was fairly standard for families of the Milne's wealth and social status). Most of all, Christopher Robin really suffers from the immense fame that the huge success of the "Winnie-the Pooh" stories conferred upon him. However, this is a very beautiful film, full of summer meadows and dappled sunlight shining through trees, and does manage to capture some of the magic of Milne's work. The performances are good from all concerned, with Will Tilston in particular affecting as the young Christopher Robin. In the end, the film becomes incredibly moving.
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