“Goodbye Christopher Robin”

***

(PG, 1:47)

“Goodbye Christopher Robin” digs into the origins and consequences of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories on writer A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin Milne, the boy upon which the stories’ sole human character is based.

If you’re expecting a lighter-than-air Pooh spin-off from this British period film, the opening should get you to pack away your childish fantasies. As we watch grisly nighttime combat during WWI, playwright A.A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) comes of age in unrelating hell. For years, he wrestles with the psychological horrors of war, no longer fitting into London’s social life of moneyed self-indulgence. He decides to write a great pacifist work to end violent militarism. “I’m tired of making people laugh,” he says. “I want to make them see.”

His wife Daphne, played by Margot Robbie as a conceited social diva, calls Milne’s idea “perfectly horrid.” Still, the family moves to the countryside to help him focus on the project, but the rural solitude silence leaves him blocked as a writer.

While taking a walk in the woods with his son Christopher (played at this age by the adorable Will Tilston), inspiration for a trifle of a story to entertain the youngster strikes. He has a friend add illustrations of a boy and his toy animals and begins discussing the best approach for a story that can lift Britain’s morale after the war.

“Are you writing a book?” Christopher asks. “I thought we were just having fun.” “We’re writing a book and we’re having fun,” his father replies. “I didn’t know you could do both at the same time,” Christopher replies.

The book surpasses the wildest expectations, spawns three sequels and becomes a global brand. But Christopher loses his mother, getting sympathetic care from his new governess (Kelly Macdonald) and repaying it with a devotion deeper than any bond he has to his family. Meanwhile, his father is elbowed aside by the adoring public, with “the real Christopher Robin” becoming the focus of all the attention. “He must be the happiest boy on earth,” one onlooker sighs.

Of course, the moral of the film is that fame can extract a huge price. It was impossible for the Milne family to find privacy. Christopher suffers the worst of it, his resentment at the unwanted attention rising as he grows into an adult (now capably played by Alex Lawther).

“Goodbye Christopher Robin” is a film with a good supply of heart, plucking our emotional strings through both the sweetness of the story and its darker elements of conflict. It’s a fresh footnote to the story that may change hearts and minds about the cherished character.