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One of the favorite stories my father likes to tell about my childhood relates to Winnie the Pooh. When I was young I loved that silly old bear and watched all of my relevant VHS tapes diligently. My father loves to recall how one of my favorite moments was as the narrator was performing his task, Pooh inquires as to the mysterious voice he’s overhearing. “That,” Tigger proclaims with gusto, “is the narrator!”
I collapsed into a fit of giggles every time I viewed this scene, according to my father. For whatever reason he loves to tell it, perhaps because its breaking of the fourth wall and nod to the interactive nature of story, and my gleeful response to these things, indicated the love I would soon discover and keep for literature.
Disney’s latest trip into the Hundred Acre Wood, feature film “Winnie the Pooh,” came out in July 2011. Because it didn’t play at my tiny local theater it took me a while to see it. But now I have and I can say with joy that it satisfies both my inner Pooh-loving child and the more discerning adult looking to find a good kids movie.
In some ways it does feel like directors Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall were checking boxes off of a list. Film opened and closed with live-action shots of stuffed toy versions of Pooh & Friends? Check. A book opening to the strains of the classic “Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood” Winnie the Pooh theme song? Check. Narration complete with constant breaking-the-fourth-wall conversations with Pooh? Check. Narrator pointing things out to Pooh? Check. The characters tumbling all over the physical manifestations of the sentences in their stories? Check.
The above paragraph is not a complaint. While Disney does seem to be on a nostalgia kick this year (between “The Muppet Movie” and “Winnie the Pooh,” I wonder what old property’s going to get a wistful revival next), the old Winnie the Pooh formula works. Trips to the Hundred Acre Wood don’t need rip-roaring action or dastardly villains. They’re about friendship and fun, laughter and family.
And wordplay, oh, the wordplay! I never noticed it as a child, but words in Winnie the Pooh adaptations zip and zing nearly as well as ones written by A.A. Milne himself. Owl is the emperor of elocution, which makes his slip-ups in the written word all the more amusing. Even Pooh, the self-professed Bear of Very Little Brain, has a delightful way of speaking that owes more to syntactical choices than lofty language.
For those of you unfamiliar with “Winnie the Pooh,” I’m sad to say that my point of view won’t be of much help in determining whether or not you’ll like it. I can’t possibly be objective on this one; I grew up loving Pooh and Friends, and even the adult me has no chance at any other opinions, Anglophile that I am (and Winnie the Pooh is just so very English).
If you love Pooh, and especially if you’ve been aghast, like me, at his recent iterations on the Disney Channel, then you’ll relish 2011’s “Winnie the Pooh.” Christopher Robin is back where he belongs, and all is more than well in the Hundred Acre Wood.
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*(This image by d4rr3ll is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
