Movie of the Week: Paddington

Alex: Adapting illustrated children’s books into feature-length movies is no easy feat. Those stories are built on short and sweet narratives, so sustaining that for at least 90 minutes in a way that feels natural is a challenge – and it’s one that “Paddington” pulls off swimmingly. Paddington is such a classic character, and this adaptation is completely worthy of him. It is so delightful. It balances plenty of references fans of the books will appreciate with fresh new territory, including a backstory about the explorer who introduced Paddington’s family to British culture as well as a new villain, played with pitch-perfect frostiness by Nicole Kidman. The film adeptly transports the action to the present day without losing any of the charm of the original books. The cast is fantastic. Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins are the perfect people to adopt Paddington. They’re clearly having fun playing around in Paddington’s world, which only bolsters the movie’s playful vibe. The icing on the cake is the vibrant production design, particularly the Brown family home. It’s truly like a children’s book come to life.

Joel: When making a movie for kids, often times there will be jokes thrown in there aimed at the adult audience that was dragged there by their children. Usually it’s a sly innuendo or a reference to something that in no way could be something intended for the younger target audience. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Some movies pull it off better than others, but Paddington opts to not worry about that. Paddington instead decides to be an unquestionably great movie at all levels. Usually when a movie is described as good for all ages, that’s just a nice way of saying it’s a kids movie, but Paddington is a movie that is genuinely warm, heartfelt, and charming, no matter what age you are. Like a live action Pixar movie, Paddington is an unbelievably sweet and charming movie. It’s able to take the tone of the early “Paddington” stories and adapt them in a way that they not only work in a movie format, but that creates a really good story.

The casting is pitch perfect in this movie as well. There were stories going around during the production of the movie that Colin Firth was originally cast as the voice of Paddington, but during post production it was decided that his voice wasn’t working for the character, and he was replaced by Ben Whishaw. Now, Colin Firth is a much bigger name, and obviously it would have been great for the studio to be able to put his name on the poster, but it really says something that they decided to go with a lesser known actor because that’s what worked for the character and for the movie. That type of commitment to first and foremost making a good movie above everything else is apparent throughout the film. This is clearly a movie that was made with love and care, and it shows through the end product that’s on the screen.

Chris: I’m always leery when it comes movies that are aimed towards children because at some point, I was convinced they were all a cash grab without any thought going into the story. I couldn’t have been more wrong about Paddington as this was mostly a love letter to a character that has been in the British culture for over 50 years so great care went into the story while realizing it had to appeal to all ages. It’s silly and it’s ridiculous and of course everything comes together in the end. The cast worked incredibly well with the script and with each other and, as someone who came in not expecting to really enjoy this movie, I find myself feeling interested in the sequel that’s gotten incredibly positive reviews.

Jason: Paddington was not high on my list of movies I wanted to see. Honestly, I forgot they had even made a movie until recently when I saw promotional material for the sequel which comes out this year. Paddington was not a big part of my childhood, seeing as I didn’t grow up in England in the 70’s, and so my foreknowledge of the character and story is nonexistent. I remember seeing images of a small bear in a red hat and blue coat but was never really inclined to read the books or anything. This film has done nothing to compel me to do so now, either. It wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t tremendous. It had its fair share of cool shots, like the dollhouse opening to reveal a cross section of the Brown’s house, but that was about it. Most modern films aimed at kids have at least something for the adults in the audience. Subtle jokes, references that fly over children’s heads, that kind of thing. But this one had none of that. It is  strictly a kids’ movie and I’m sure I would have loved it if I were 25 years younger and/or had some emotional connection to the source material. The acting was acceptable. Nicole Kidman and Jim Broadbent are always a treat. There was one gag that did tickle me: when we first meet Kidman’s character, she is in a cramped room lined with mounted animal heads. She walks through a door and on the other side of the wall are the bodies of the animals whose heads are poking through to the other side. That made me giggle. That was about it. The rest of the movie just made me go “eh…” I can’t say I’ll be lining up to see the sequel.