Paddington

From the initial teaser trailers that came out for the film, Paddington looked awful. The 2014 family comedy based on the heavily popular British children’s story written by Michael Bond about the titular bear who came to London to find a home, had trailers that felt so old-fashioned and child-pandering that it was a terrible sign for what was coming when the movie was released. But surprising literally everyone, Paddington didn’t only win over critics and audiences, but it was said to be one of the best movies from 2014 and instead of being lame and predictable, was actually charming and very engaging. In the jungles of Darkest Peru, a young bear is sent away to London after his home in the jungle was destroyed in an earthquake. He is tasked by his Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) to look for the home of a British geographer who is named Montgomery Clyde (played by Tim Downie) who befriended the bears and offered them a place to stay at his home in London if it was ever required. Needing a new home now, the bear is found by the Brown family alone at a station and they decide to help him find the explorer, even though the father, Mr Brown (played by Hugh Bonneville) doesn’t warm up to him as quickly as the others do. The family name the bear Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) and he starts trying to locate the explorer in hopes of finding a family to live with, unknowingly finding one in the Browns as he spends more time with them all. As this is going on, a crazed animal hunter named Millicent (played by Nicole Kidman) wishes to capture Paddington and have him stuffed for her collection, forcing the Browns to come to his aid and save their new family member. Earning itself several nominations at the British Academy Film Awards as well as grossing $236 million worldwide, Paddington was a massive improvement upon what was shown off from the trailers. What originally looked stupid, generic, pandering, and old-fashioned delivered something incredibly charming, sweet, innocent, and timeless with great acting, wonderful effects, nice visuals, and an unbelievably nice atmosphere.

The originals stories of Paddington written by Michael Bond and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum were loved more for their charmingly simplistic and recognizable formula instead of being anything that complex or interesting. The initial concept was given to the author by the sight of Jewish refugee children left homeless during World War II, as well as London children that needed to be evacuated to the countryside, giving the story a nice message about integration and adoption for foreign children as well as discovering the truths of the new world as opposed to what they were perceived to be. While these stories didn’t contain this level of rich maturity in its plots or situations, they are nice touches that helped bring a soft genuine nature to the character, and that aspect seems to have been integrated into the film as well. The story for this film is not the least bit complicated and is almost a little insulting in how simplistic it comes across. This format of a abnormal character coming into a normal family and brightening up their lives in their own unique way as already been done several times before this film, and it doesn’t even just stop there as the film as jam packs several more lame cliches that have also previously factored into these familiar stories in past films, so you’d expect the film to be largely unimpressive and unoriginal for how little is included that feels fresh and distinct. However, through the writing, pacing, directing, and acting, it doesn’t feel manipulative or lazy, instead the audience is so sucked in by the remarkably pleasant atmosphere that the clichés feel natural to the narrative that is being told rather than a tool used to insert in forced conflict. Despite being one of his first time directing jobs, Paul King does a lot of the heavy lifting for this movie and controls this expected narrative in a manner that makes it engaging. Even if the message is predictable and the overall narrative has nothing special in it that makes it stand apart from other similar kids films, the film handles itself so well that it makes it feel delightful even if its old.

Most of the character’s are taken from the book series and the set-up for them seems to be taken from the first story of the series, Please Look After This Bear. Like the story itself, the characters are insanely likeable and sweet, matching the tone of the film perfectly by feeling like real people but with enough of a cartoonish edge that they come off as the right amount of bizarre. While most of them are pretty archetypal, they play those archetypes so well that it again fools people into ignoring how old these clichés are. Paddington as a character, for example, is not anything remarkable or that distinct, as just being a sweet bear who does nice things is not the most interesting focal point for a film. But with very nice performance by Ben Winshaw and some very impressive effects, he is makes for a very solid lead character to be follow through the movie with and its someone you genuinely want to see succeed at their task. Winshaw gets that nice balance of sounding young and oblivious to a new world, while still have a sense of maturity and politeness that doesn’t come off as annoying or condescending, its a very well handled character and performance. The Brown family are all pretty likeable and each one of the them offers something that adds to the overall charm of the film, with most of the kids providing general support, Sally Hawkins providing a very kind and understanding motherly presence, and Hugh Bonneville as Mr Brown plays the standard ”father who has to be persuaded to act more kind and friendly” role quite well and becomes very likeable once he makes that change come the end of the film. Nicole Kidman is having a lot of fun as the villain; while not an actress that can do a wide variety of characters, she excels at the ones where she can be crazy, with a steel-like gaze and sinister over-the-top voice, it’s hugely entertaining.

The effects on Paddington are remarkably good; always feeling like he occupies the same space as the rest of the actors and having pretty great textures on his fur and in his expressions. This came through the usage of CGI as well as animatronics, combining their talents together into making something that wowed a lot of audiences. His overly colorful and bright fur already contrasts well with the real-worlds darker and gloomy setting, but his outfit helps him stand out far more due to the red and blue popping strongly against the film’s blacks and golds. The handling of color is surprisingly nice in this movie, with the production design by Gary Williamson and the set decoration by Cathy Cosgrove making the coloration feel extra prominent, giving locations an almost over-saturation of color down to the strongly gold-tinted house, to the harshly dark and blue of the London streets, to the gloriously green pastures of the jungle, it makes it feel just like a story book. The humor in the movie is nothing amazing, especially in regard to those specific trailer-created scenes that feel very out-of-place compared to the rest of the movie. Anytime the film dedicates a solid few minutes to mindless slapstick revolving around typical human appliances, the film feels lazy and manipulative. But thankfully those few painful scenes are not too prominent in the film and even if it’s not very funny, it replaces that with buckets full of charm and cutesy in nature to make it humble enough to ignore those elements. The film is also shot very well too by cinematographer Erik Wilson, providing a vibe that feels almost like a Wes Anderson film with all the visual motifs and crazy camera angles matched with this bright yet diluted color scheme.

Paddington was a pleasant surprise that offered a lot more than what was expected of it. Bringing a story that is so delightfully British to a mainstream audience in movie format could have so easily backfired as tons of other famous story-book icons have suffered previous. While this movie could have been like that and appeared to be with how the trailers showed it off to be, Paddington is handled with such care and effort that it takes bland and generic elements and makes them wholesome and simply cute. With a great cast, lively visuals, a fun villain, and a wonderful wholesome atmosphere, Paddington is a pleasant surprise that delivers a sweetness unlike any other.