Jack and I loved this lushly produced story of writer A. A. Milne (creator of Winnie the Pooh) and his family, beginning with his PTSD following World War I and up to the early years of WWII when he got famous for his writing. The acting is just as good as the wardrobe and production design, and that’s saying a lot. Domhnall Gleeson (last blogged for American Made) really makes us feel Alan Milne's post-war despair (with the help of troubling flashbacks) and Margot Robbie (most recently in The Legend of Tarzan) is his fun-loving wife Daphne with exquisite taste in clothes and interior design (more on that in a moment). Kelly Macdonald (last blogged for T2 Trainspotting) is the loving nanny to Christopher AKA Billy, played at age 8 by Will Tilston, now 10, in a stunning acting debut (here's an article about his casting). Stephen Campbell Moore (was one of the teachers in The History Boys, both the 2004 original play and the 2006 movie, and Burnt, to name a few credits) is Milne's supportive war buddy, illustrator Ernest Shepard.
Simon Curtis (last helmed Woman in Gold) directs from a script by co-writers Frank Cottrell Boyce (adapted Hilary and Jackie (1998) and Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005, under the pen name Martin Hardy) as well as writing the original screenplay for Millions (2004)) and Simon Vaughan (it's his first screenplay after a credit for the story of a 2004 TV movie A Bear Named Winnie). The struggles of love, family, war, and writer's block feel very real--there's a fair amount of sadness mixed in with the imagination and wonder and I don't recommend this for children.
I kind of want to see it again just to focus on Robbie's divine beaded dresses. Costume designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux has worked on, among others, Dirty Pretty Things (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), An Education, One Day, Quartet, Brooklyn, Denial, and The Sense of an Ending. And the parlor/living room in the Milnes' London house is so magnificent I was delighted each time I got to see it again and notice something new (this is the first theatrical feature, after many TV movies and series, for production designer David Roger). The country estate in Sussex is also quite beautiful and beautifully shot by Ben Smithard (last blogged for Viceroy's House). Jack wanted me to mention the sweet animation, morphing Shepard's original drawings into real life and back again.
There is one delightful sequence that's a total anachronism, where 1928 Billy is enchanted by penguins in a part of the London Zoo that was actually built in 2011. But who cares? It's gorgeous. A later scene shot in the Zoo will remind present-day viewers of a recent tragedy but it's based on a real event, depicted in photos at the closing credits.
The movie means a lot to me because my mother read to me the poems of A.A. Milne when I was a child in the 1950s, and I have no doubt her mother read them to her. I reread some today, the day after seeing the movie, specifically Disobedience, which is foretold in the movie, and The King's Breakfast, a family favorite, both of which are in the collection When We Were Very Young, first published in 1924, when my mother was five years old.
Carter Burwell (most recently scored The Founder) provides lovely orchestral music, which can be streamed for over an hour (including a few pop songs of the 20s) from this youtube link.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 63% and its audiences at 77 aren't as warm as we are and we don't care. Go see it.
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