★★★★

Given the success of the Paddington films – now three in, not to mention a West End musical – it was only a matter of time before other staples of the British children’s library would wind their way to the big screen. Sure enough, here is Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree, lovingly modernised by Ben Gregor and Simon Farnaby. That the latter co-wrote and conceived the second – and best – Paddington film tells you all you need to know. His are delightfully quirky but ultimately safe pair of hands.

It’s no mean feat, mind, to translate the original Faraway Tree japes to the here and now. Certainly, the twenty-first-century youngster bears scant resemblance to the tykes Blyton wrote about. Where the child of 1939 would take  precious little persuasion to go gadding off into an Enchanted Wood, they of 2026 must first be pulled from YouTube. This is the first contrivance of Farnaby’s script. Our core family must relocate from modern life to the countryside that WiFi forgot. There’s a lesson for all of us in this. Strip away the screens and noise and the world around us might rediscover its colour. That’s not nostalgia – although much of this is – it’s the loss of lived experience. 

Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield are Polly and Tim Thompson, parents to Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), Fran (Billie Gadsdon) and Joe (Phoenix Laroche). He’s a stay-at-home dad, his head dazzled by the clouds of idealism, she’s an inventor and a rather brilliant one at that. When Polly’s employers deceive her into turning the smart fridge she’s invented into an AI spy, however, she quits her job. Seeing his in, Tim takes this cue to cajole Polly into a fresh start in the wilderness wanderlust of his own childhood. A sun-kissed idyll, in who knows where, with the climate of Northern Italy. Teenage Beth is furious and youngster Joe is perplexed. As for middle child Fran, she hasn’t spoken in some time. It’s almost like she’s forgotten how.

Naturally, then, it is Fran, who first discovers and benefits from the magic of the Faraway Tree, lured into its leaves by a twinkly Nicola Coughlan, who plays the fairy Silky. From here, the remaining folk are introduced in quick succession. Nonso Anozie is endearingly pompous as a veritably regal Moonface, while Dustin Demri-Burns gets all the best lines as the straight talking but hard of hearing Saucepan Man. Up top, Jessica Gunning is pitch perfect as Dame Washalot, dressed almost entirely in rubber gloves, while there’s a small but spikey role for Hiran Abeysekera as Blyton’s Angry Pixie. 

Eccentricity and naivety belie a tinge of the sad in the set. There’s definitely something quietly devastating in the thought of these loveable oddballs sitting patiently over tea and pop cakes for decades, waiting for the next generation to come and play. Making that sing, this really is top tier casting. Credit, too, should be afforded the design team responsible for pulling each from page to screen. Every inch of The Magic Faraway Tree basks in the glow of tremendous production design and a real eye of the genuinely enchanting.

Where Blyton’s books are best known for the magical lands that hover in the skies above, Gregor and Farnaby circumvent any risk of the film feeling episodic by rooting the thrust here to terra firma. There’s fun to be had in the Lands of Goodies, Birthdays and Know-Alls but it’s the family unit themselves, and their quest to make this new rural life work, that pulls the heart. The efforts of the kids’ wealthy German Grandma (Jennifer Saunders) to pull them back to smartphone society are as frightening as anything Rebecca Fergusson’s fearsome Dame Snap can throw at them in her Alcatrazian land.

Know, as we do, that all will work out in the end, there’s a riot to be had in the journey there. The film frequently very funny and will leave you yearning for more (please!) Maybe even a West End musical?

T.S.