In the Flesh: Paddington

Is there much in Paddington’s visual language to recommend it? No. Is the script tight or, failing that, exceptional? Again, no. Will it open the notoriously stony hearts of the Western world to the plight of refugees and immigrants? No, art doesn’t really work like that. What Paul King’s 2014 adaptation of the classic children’s book has going for it is a committed cast, an almost agonizingly charming and adorable protagonist, and a sense of zany earnestness out of step with the current wave of sloppily made CGI-fests passing for children’s movies these days. While it makes a few cringey updates to the source material, it largely retains the staid and mannerly tone of Michael Bond’s original books, with Ben Whishaw’s proper but just short of fussy voice work endowing the character with a simultaneously childish and earthy sense of personality, a sort of Small Adult with the chaotic potential of a toddler and the affect of a salt of the earth English gardening enthusiast born in 1927.

The film’s attempts to reckon with the British Empire’s colonialist legacy are a mixed bag, fundamentally good-hearted but at the same time hobbled by the very thing that makes Paddington so loveable: his unflappable Englishness. The visual language the film uses in pursuit of this theme is actually fairly sophisticated: the Other is only different in superficial ways, while at heart they remind us of our best characteristics, giving us a chance to reflect on our values whenever we’re surprised out of our complacency. It’s not something that gels with real life, substituting a complex socio-cultural problem for one of simple aesthetics. As a message for children it’s palatable, but it fails to actually connect with the fraught dynamics of forces like white supremacy and global unrest. Still, combined with the positioning of the British Museum as a vault of horrors memorializing the ransacking of diverse biomes it’s a thoughtful effort, and a charming one.

Charm is the film’s long suit, from Sally Hawkins’ earnest kindness to Hugh Bonneville’s blustery, protective restraint — a visual joke in which he enters the natal ward alongside his wife a bearded, swaggering biker and exits it a sweater-vested actuary with a beige Volvo is particularly effective at showcasing his talent for this — and the wide-eyed and wizened eccentricity of Jim Broadbent’s antique shop owner, the cast is stacked with veterans of stage and screen all punching far above the script’s sometimes clunky weight class. The sole exception is Matt Lucas, whose total lack of charisma and talent almost warps the lens whenever he blunders onscreen. Kidman does game work as the villainous museum taxidermist Millicent Clyde, daughter of the explorer who discovered Paddington’s species of bear and then consigned himself to obscurity and poverty by refusing to bring a specimen back to England. Paddington himself, though, is unequaled, a heartstring manipulation machine to which even I am not immune. His big, soleful eyes, his expressive snout, his little hat and coat. After you’ve watched him sit sadly in the pouring rain you will feel ready to kill a human being to prevent it from happening again.