Story
Christopher Robin begins with a young Christopher Robin (Orton O’Brien) leaving for boarding school and sadly saying goodbye to his Hundred Acre Wood friends.
As an adult, Christopher (Ewan McGregor) meets and marries Evelyn (Hayley Atwell). He must leave to fight in the war, however, and doesn’t meet his daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) for some years. When he returns home after the war, he starts to work for the Winslow Luggage Company. The economy is very poor, and the Winslows are looking at ways to save money. Christopher Robin is overcome by the pressures of work and finds little time to spend with his family. While pondering how to cut costs, Christopher unexpectedly meets his old friend Winnie the Pooh (voice of Jim Cummings) in a London park.
Christopher Robin can’t understand how Winnie the Pooh has found his way to London but realises he must take him back to the Hundred Acre Wood. He’s sad to find the Wood rather desolate and all of his old friends nowhere to be seen. He eventually discovers them hiding from the heffalumps. Christopher Robin must save them from their fears and at the same time save himself from the dull person he has become.
Themes
Childhood and adulthood; play and fun; war
Violence
Christopher Robin has some violence. For example:
- At boarding school, a teacher slams a cane down on Christopher Robin’s desk.
- There is a brief war scene in which an explosion blows up some buildings, setting them on fire. Soldiers are hurt by the explosion and fall to the ground.
- Christopher Robin gets angry with Winnie the Pooh and yells at him.
- Christopher Robin has a fight with imaginary heffalumps, attacking them with his umbrella and spearing them with a broken weather vane.
- Madeline gets upset and knocks everything off her desk.
- A taxi driver crashes his cab into a shopfront.
- The Hundred Acre Wood animals are all in a suitcase on the back of a truck where they get bounced around. The suitcase falls off the truck and is dragged along behind it with the animals inside. They crash into objects along the way. The truck crashes into a pole and the animals fly out of the suitcase and land on the windscreen of the car being driven by Evelyn and Christopher Robin.
Slapstick and comical violence includes the following:
- Winnie the Pooh falls down the stairs.
- A phonograph speaker falls on Winnie the Pooh’s head, and Christopher Robin has to shake him out of it.
- Winnie the Pooh creates a huge mess in the kitchen and makes the shelves crash down, breaking everything on them.
- Winnie the Pooh accidentally knocks a man down.
- Eeyore is catapulted off a roof and lands with his head in a bucket.
- Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger all fall down an embankment.
Sexual references
Nothing of concern
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
Nothing of concern
Nudity and sexual activity
Nothing of concern
Product placement
Nothing of concern
Coarse language
Christopher Robin has some coarse language.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Christopher Robin is a Disney family movie. The mixture of real-life and animated animals is quite realistic, and children will love seeing their favourite book animals come to life. Adults might also enjoy the movie for its nostalgia value, with some picturesque scenes resembling the original book illustrations. Winnie the Pooh is the hero who, having been looked after and rescued many times by Christopher Robin when he was young, now comes to rescue Christopher Robin.
This is quite a gentle movie, but there are some brief scary scenes that make it unsuitable for very young viewers.
The main message from this movie is that it’s important to make time for the people you love. Although work is important, it shouldn’t take priority over family.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include the importance of teamwork, friendship, play, loyalty, care and compassion.
This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues like why Eeyore is always so gloomy. What can be done to help him?