goodbye christopher robin

Ihadn’t heard about this film until a week ago, when a friend mentioned how good it was so we dedicated this week’s family movie night to Christopher Robin and his bitter-sweet yet astonishing story. I was surprised to discover that although everyone knows everything about Winnie the Pooh, including myself, the biography of its literary “father” A.A.Milne and his son Billie Moon has somehow escaped my attention.

“Goodbye Christopher Robin” (2017) is a wonderful movie not only because of its great actors and settings but also because of the gentle infusion of historical underlay. Giving a glimpse to the post-WWI England, the plot makes brief but realistic references to the enormous and unnecessary suffering all wars bring and to the steep precipice between the wellbeing of those who initiate wars compared to those who actually fight in them.

The other thing we liked about it (if two teens and 2 adults agree that a movie is good, then it is really good) was the subtleness with which the other side of Winnie-the-Pooh’s fame and glory was presented. I had no idea that such a side existed at all. As it is always in life, light needs darkness to shine through. I did some reading on the A.A.Milne’s family story and it doesn’t seem to have a happy end. Winnie-the-Pooh came from a dark place, made millions of people very happy but overcast the skies above his own home.

The topic of [good] parenthood has always been my Achilles’ heel so I was particularly empathic to the way the little Christopher Robin (pet name Billie Moon) was raised, especially by his mother, but then again, the boy knew love, knew freedom and nature, and had someone in his life to taught him how to think, feel and appreciate life, and this is a life well spent.

 

There were many other little details in this movie which I found incredibly telling and well placed – like the character of Christopher’s nanny, his father’s war induced post-traumatic stress disorder, the quantum thought pattern of his mother and the hate he had for his early and uninvited all-pervading fame. I won’t go into them because the interpretation of such topics is usually a matter of personal perspective; instead, here’s who created the most popular bear-boy ensemble in history:

Alan Alexander Milne (A.A.Milne)

• Born on 18 January 1882 in Kilburn, London, England.
• In his early years he attended Henley House School in Kilburn – a small independent school run by his father – followed by Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. Later he won a scholarship and graduated Cambridge with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1903.
• A talented cricket fielder, Milne played for amateur teams together with fellow writers J. M. Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle and P. G. Wodehouse.
• E.H. Shepard is the illustrator of Winnie-the-Pooh, recommended to A. A. Milne in 1923. Realising his contribution to the book’s success, the writer arranged for Shepard to receive a share of his royalties.
  
• Shepard modelled Pooh not on the toy owned by Christopher Robin but on his own son’s stuffed bear (“Growler”).
• In 2008, a collection of original illustrations featuring Winnie-the-Pooh and his animal friends sold for more than £1.2 million at auction in Sotheby’s, London.
• A.A. Milne inscribed a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh with a personal verse dedicated to E.H.Shepard: