OVERVIEW
The Magic Faraway Tree is a fun adventure for the whole family, reminiscent of Roald Dahl adaptations and the Paddington films, a throwback to a kind of family fantasy that has become increasingly rare. Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy play Tim and Polly, parents who move their three children to the English countryside after Polly quits her successful career as an inventor when she discovers that her latest creation is being used to spy on consumers. With money suddenly limited, the couple hopes to revive Tim’s old dream of making and selling homemade tomato sauce, a plan their children, especially eldest daughter Beth, are considerably less excited about. Struggling with their new life away from the city and their screens, the three children begin exploring the woods surrounding their home, where they discover an enormous magical tree that is inhabited by eccentric creatures and serves as a gateway to fantastical worlds, each offering a new adventure that makes them rethink their priorities.
BACKGROUND
The film is based on Enid Blyton’s British book series, which began in 1939 and, despite its enormous popularity, had never received a feature film adaptation. Producer Pippa Harris of Neal Street first pursued the rights nearly two decades ago, but changes in ownership of the Blyton estate complicated the process before Harris and Nicolas Brown eventually secured them in 2013. Simon Farnaby, who co-wrote Paddington 2 and Wonka, was brought in to modernize Blyton’s stories, while longtime television director Ben Gregor, making his feature debut, saw the film as an opportunity to address children’s post-pandemic anxiety and growing dependence on screens, contrasting modern digital life with the freedom of exploring nature and using their imagination.
THE REVIEW
In trying to recapture this kind of creativity, Gregor leans on practical sets and tactile costumes rather than filling the screen with special effects that might have broadened the scope but, ironically, cheapened the environments. Instead, The Magic Faraway Tree feels refreshingly physical, leveraging a symphonic and often gorgeous score by Isabella Summers, while the conception of every world the children visit seems like a place actually meant to be explored. In a genre increasingly crowded with noise, the mere realization that what the characters are interacting with is real is by itself a breath of fresh air.
The worlds themselves are simple but creative. No sight will compete with a waterfall made of chocolate, but outside the more standard lands made of candy, there are a few clever ideas, including a world where anyone’s first wish becomes reality, a school built like a dungeon, and the Land of Know-It-Alls, ruled by a trio of enormous, self-important figures in a quick but amusing Monty Python-inspired sequence. Each stop introduces a new idea, a new challenge, and usually some misunderstanding or lesson for the children to take with them.
That simplicity is helped enormously by a charming and earnest cast, especially Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, who play the kind of warm parents any child would be immensely lucky to have. Both find the balance, earnest without tipping into too much, and the subtle signs of worry and melancholy that feel authentic and permeate the whole film. The supporting cast has considerably more fun. Rebecca Ferguson and Jennifer Saunders both deliver wonderfully exaggerated performances, happily chewing the scenery whenever the story gives them the opportunity.
The adventures bring their share of challenges, misunderstandings, and uncomplicated morals about empathy and family unity, which the two younger children catch on to relatively quickly, while Beth carries the more substantial arc. Delilah Bennett Cardy’s voice is strangely mature for how young she looks, at odds with her appearance at first, until it settles into something oddly appropriate for a girl who left childhood behind way too soon, and her journey toward rediscovering that part of herself, especially in a pivotal moment with Nicola Coughlan’s naive Silky, gives the otherwise straightforward adventure its most meaningful emotional thread.
In modernizing the tale, Farnaby and Gregor make their point about what has been lost in recent years, especially after the pandemic forced children to stay locked in the house in front of screens. The possibility of living somewhere surrounded by nature and things to discover seems considerably less exciting than remaining in a cramped city apartment with video games and reliable WiFi.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Magic Faraway Tree finds its greatest pleasure in the wonder of discovery, when a strange place and a few unusual characters were enough to spark an adventure. Little about it is especially fresh or ambitious, but it uses that simple framework to celebrate the imagination that childhood once demanded, lamenting what has been lost along the way in a manner that stays optimistic rather than bitter. It moves at the pace of the throwback fantasy films it recalls, which unfortunately may bore children used to having something flashing on screen at all times, so the film may end up connecting more with nostalgic parents than with the children it hopes to reach. Still, if a few of them leave curious enough to put down the screen and go play around a tree, perhaps that is exactly what it set out to do.
Still courtesy of VVS Films
- 1Hadestown: The Musical
- 2Tuner
- 3Minotaur
- 4The Weight
- 5Wicker
- 54The Magic Faraway Tree#54 of 208
- Where to watch
- Rent or buy at Apple TV Store, Amazon Video
- Where to watch
- In Theaters
Play trailer
- Original title
- The Magic Faraway Tree
- Director
- Ben Gregor
- Cast
- Billie Gadsdon, Nicola Coughlan, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche, Nonso Anozie, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Ferguson, Claire Foy
- Rated
- G
- Screenwriter
- Simon Farnaby
- Composer
- Isabella Summers
- Cinematography
- Zac Nicholson
- Editor
- Gary Dollner
- Country
- Language
- English
- Box office
- $32.241 million
- Distributor (CA)
- VVS Films