Review of Paddington (2014) by Drauchdoes2015 — 14 Apr 2015

Did anyone see Paddington coming? I didn't. CGI/live-action crossovers have never struck me as a technique that could ever lead to anything other than cringing from adults and mindless amusement from the kiddies. Well, here we are. I didn't think the day would come so soon, trust me. I've been yearning for a long time to stumble across a savory family film, but the consideration of Paddington as that diamond in the rough had never even crossed my mind. I'm here to report the good news - Paddington rules. It's not just a good movie, but one that even verges on greatness in instances and I'm convinced if it had found the right audience and not been released in the garbage heap of a month that is January, Paddington could've found itself approaching instant-classic status.

Now let's take a step back. This is still just a family film. This isn't a revelatory movie for the genre. It doesn't subvert cliches. It doesn't break new ground. Paddington, rather, succeeds because it casts aside what has become prevalently detrimental in a recent slew of family films (mean-spirited cynicism, degraded intelligence) and embraces theage-old virtues of naivety and warm-heartedness that make the genre so appealing. Paddington is not a movie that succumbs to referring to zeitgeist topics of cultural relevance. It sticks to what is true to the original content of the books and, though it is visually resplendent thanks to advances in technology, is rendered somewhat timeless.

The modern aesthetic I mentioned earlier is a seamlessly blended interaction of the titular computer generated bear and the game cast of VERY English actors. When I say that I BEARLY noticed that Paddington was CGI (obvious, grating pun obviously intended), I mean it. The illusion never broke, everything felt authentic, a compliment I can only bestow to a few applications of the hybrid medium (Life of Pi, LOTR, the new Planet of the Apes films). And boy, is this bear a delight.

Ben Whishaw voices Paddington with a gentle, graceful, mannerly demeanor that never breaks or betrays itself by succumbing to negativity. He is a compassionate, warm children's icon I can believe in. The ensemble of performers he is surrounded by is uniformly great as well, with Sally Hawkins exuding her typically optimistic effervescence and Hugh Bonneville's stuffy disposition deconstructing into the butt of many jokes. The child performances are devoid of irritation, another welcome pair of performances in the mix. Even Nicole Kidman, whom I would have expected to buckle to cartoonish villainy, avoids outright juvenile gags, save for an attack perpetrated by pigeons in the final act. The only performance issue I draw in Paddington is in the form of Jim Broadbent, whose antics are bumbling and infantile to the degree of mild irritation, though not embarrassment.

Humor abounds at every turn. A silly gag here, an unexpected misdirect there, all for the sake of inconsistent absurdity. Not everything works, as they rarely do in any comedy, but Paddington's hit-to-miss ratio is high, and it's all accented with a quirk I hadn't anticipated. Some off-kilter camerawork and the spontaneous insertion of a subversively articulate vernacular make it feel like the kids film Wes Anderson never made (oh wait, Fantastic Mr. Fox anyone?). These oddball stylistic flourishes Paddington employs avoid stagnancy. While some of the jokes feel obvious, there are also those that also catch me off guard. There is actual wit on display.

Paddington is a movie about an anthropomorphic bear from Peru with a deep appetite for marmalade and an emergency sandwich at the ready underneath his hat. It's a silly one, this flick. Amidst it's slapstick and hilarity, however, there is depth and real emotion. Paddington deserves laudatory sentiments decreeing it one of the best family films in recent memory because it is, plain and simple. Buy this one for your kids and keep it as one of the formative films of their childhood, it deserves that much.