Review: Paddington
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
It's as pleasant as biscuits and a fresh cup of tea, but a few cucumber sandwiches shy of a full meal.
City Paper grade: B-
Michael Bond’s ever-so-British Paddington Bear books didn’t seem a good bet for the big screen: A substantial part of their charm likes in their plotlessness, not to mention their proud provincialism. Paul King, best known as the direction of the cult TV show The Mighty Boosh, trumps up a pro forma conflict between Paddington (Ben Whishaw, who redubbed Colin Firth in post-production) and an evil taxidermist (played by Nicole Kidman in a peroxide-blonde Louise Brooks bob). But like the similarly perfunctory story in Big Hero 6, Paddington’s falls away easily as if by design, leaving us ample time to hang out with a furry Peruvian expat and his adopted English family, the Browns, headed by the stiff-lipped Hugh Bonneville and the delightfully dotty Sally Hawkins. Subtly but persistently, King threads the film with references to Paddington’s immigrant status: A persnickety neighbor (Peter Capaldi) worries that the neighborhood will be ruined by the influx of more of “them” and their “jungle music,” and Jim Broadbent’s antiques dealer relates a stylized backstory that establishes him as a refugee from Eastern European totalitarianism. The movie is full of wonderful touches (like a view of the Browns’ cozy London home as a finely detailed cutaway dollhouse) but they don’t fit together into a coherent approach, let alone a worldview. It’s as pleasant as biscuits and a fresh cup of tea, but a few cucumber sandwiches shy of a full meal.
