Goodbye Christopher Robin

(Image credit: © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Fi)

A terrific movie about writer AA Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) and the origins of Winnie the Pooh

A terrific movie about writer AA Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) and the origins of Winnie the Pooh.

Think of the name Christopher Robin and there will be few people who aren’t instantly transported to the Hundred Acre Wood and nostalgically cosy memories of childhood.

However, director Simon Curtis' surprisingly poignant drama uncovers the pain as well as the joy lying behind the tales – it’s certainly not all jolly games of Pooh sticks and jaunty Heffalump hunts.

Milne is haunted by his military experiences during World War One and struggles with writer's block after he moves with his socialite wife, Daphne (Margot Robbie), and their young son, Christopher Robin (Will Tiltson), to the Sussex countryside – until he begins creating stories featuring his son's stuffed toys. But his dad's literary success comes at a price for the boy, as he finds himself thrust into an increasingly glaring public spotlight.

Working from a fine screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughan, Curtis successfully manages to balance his film's sadder elements with moments of merriment and bliss, and gives the scenes of bonding between awkward father and neglected son an appropriately honey-golden glow.

Gleeson is superb as the stiff-upper lipped, traumatised Milne and Tiltson is adorably cute as the young Christopher Robin. Robbie, admittedly, is somewhat short-changed by her role as the shallow Daphne, but Kelly Macdonald mines deeper emotions as the family's shrewd and sensitive nanny.