It’s nearly time for the Easter holidays, and those with families looking to keep the children entertained at the cinema for a few hours will be well served by The Magic Faraway Tree.
Adapted from legendary children’s author Enid Blyton’s cherished book series (the one that didn’t involve cracking crimes and chugging ginger beer in the Dorset countryside), this is Paddington 2 and Wonka co-writer Simon Farnaby’s newest offering, now the sole contributor to the screenplay. You might not recognise his name, but you’d certainly know Farnaby’s face – he’s had plenty of roles, his work on Ghosts chief among them, though my generation probably know him best as one of the key Horrible Histories cast.
‘The magic of childhood is always forgot, but this is the story of one who did not’
With that kind of back catalogue, it’s clear the man knows how to get a laugh out of people, and that skill is on display again here, not least in the cameo role he’s given himself as Brian, the country farmer who’s Cornish to the point of being unintelligible. He tackles the ninety-year-old source material with dexterity, taking on the original’s idea of city kids finding ways to adapt to the relative ‘boredom’ of the countryside by repurposing the central family’s retreat as a full-on tech detox, something that every 21st century family has mooted at some point or another.
Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy play Tim and Polly, a pair of parents struggling to maintain a connection with their chronically online children. “I fear Beth’s become an influencer”says the concerned father before whisking Beth, her shy sister Fran and gaming aficionado brother, Joe, on an escape to the country, with his wife in tow. Polly is the somewhat reserved pragmatist to Tim’s impassioned dreamer, but with a little help from some woodland friends and Tim’s old family recipe for a delicious pasta sauce, this venture might be just the thing to bring everyone together.
The titular tree, a vast, towering thing with an air of mystery to it, serves as the gateway to a great many magical worlds for the children to escape to, with Nicola Coughlan’s fairy Silky as their guide (among a whole cast of whimsical characters that fans of the books will already be familiar with). These different lands, from one filled with sweets to another where, for better or worse, all your wishes come true, are flashy destinations that are surprised well visualised in an age of constant digital backdrops.
Yes, there are plenty of visual effects needed to bring everything to life, but they’re used with just the right restraint and thought behind them to fit nicely with the film’s central ideas of getting away from the screen in your pocket rather than clashing. As with Farnaby’s previous creations, the denizens of the Tree serve as a who’s who of British talent, with Lenny Henry, Michael Palin and Jennifer Saunders all receiving bit-parts that go down a treat. Moving further afield, Rebecca Ferguson is especially good as Dame Snap, swapping sand worms and crysknives out for Trunchbull-esque severity as the headmistress of an eerily empty school where detention may well be a life sentence.
As the narrative continues, the film’s fantastical elements and backdrops wind up playing second fiddle to the core relationships of the Thompson family in a way that, whether intentional or not, oddly mirrors the children’s own discovery. The trailers for this made much ado about the escapism of the Tree itself, but even from what little we saw there, the interplay between Tim, Polly and the kids shone brighter than anything else in the ensemble.
The same is true of the film itself. I’ve always enjoyed watching Andrew Garfield on-screen, but at this stage in his career, he is making a proper name for himself as the whimsical father figure. We saw a little of that energy in his work on We Live in Time, but it’s the beating heart of his character here and one of the film’s best features. His co-star, too, works as an excellent Foy-l, with Polly finding a place for her own skills in a way that complements her husband’s madcap ideas rather than critiquing them. The film’s adventurous elements converge with the ‘ordinary world’ of the family’s new home in the barn well, resulting in a solid ending that plays to our heartstrings a little, which we all knew was coming in a film like this one.
Overall, The Magic Faraway Tree stands as a very solid way to spend an Easter afternoon, with enough for each member of the family to chew on. I would have loved to see the creative team push the boat out a little more when it came to the worlds themselves – they’re fun enough, but not as impressive as they could be, feeling more like interludes that bring us away from the best parts of the film rather than the fantastic escapes that they could have.
With a central trio of tragically tech-addled kids, there’s an element of pantomime to their characterisation that could have been smoothed out a little. My tween years are already well behind me, but I still raised an eyebrow at some of the lengths these three went in search of WiFi and texting.
But the film never strays too far from the familial, well-meaning core at the heart of the story, which feels very fitting for a Blyton adaptation.
BBFC: Rated U for very mild threat, rude humour, slapstick, language.
The Magic Faraway Tree is in cinemas now.
