[… and Paddington 2]
Paul King (2014, 2017)
A good number of Michael Bond’s Paddington books were published during my childhood but I don’t recall reading any. When Paul King’s first CGI-live-action Paddington was released in 2014, I wasn’t interested in seeing it. Then various people who know I see a lot of films – a lot more films than they do, anyway – kept asking about it. ‘Haven’t you seen it? Oh, you should: it’s wonderful’. This got a bit irritating but I started to think I should do as they said. I still hadn’t got round to it by the time the sequel appeared, three years later, and was similarly acclaimed. Now I felt I had to see the two films in the right order. This Christmas, I finally did, on television. Since just about everyone loves them[1], it’s quite a relief to report that I liked and admired Paddington and Paddington 2.
I remember seeing the trailer for the first film several times and being surprised by Paddington’s suffering visually dynamic discomfort – falling down an escalator or slamming into a ticket barrier on the London Underground. He was also bigger than I’d imagined (I’d seen the Paddington toys even if I hadn’t read the books). Both things take some adjusting to as you watch the films though familiarity may not be the only reason why Paddington’s size feels more right in the sequel. Paddington 2 also ups the quota of cartoonish slapstick-cum-mayhem. This still made me wince occasionally: Paddington’s face and voice are so expressive that he’s very real. After a while, I assumed this kind of action was now practically de rigueur in a commercially ambitious film for kids.
As well as directing, Paul King wrote both screenplays – the first with Hamish McColl, the second with Simon Farnaby (who also appears in two films). I don’t know how closely they follow the books but they’re efficiently plotted, Paddington 2 especially. The films also stress enough topical themes – the importance of family, community, welcoming immigrants into both – to make them seriously topical as well as easily entertaining. The action is a good advertisement too for London landmarks and emblems. These aspects of the films are no less calculated than the technical design yet King manages to create a rhythm that gives his storytelling a pleasingly natural, even casual quality. Both films have the same cinematographer (Erik Wilson), production designer (Gary Williamson) and costume designer (Lindy Hemming). The often vivid colouring of sets and clothes is very appealing.
King got together a high-powered cast for Paddington, whose success no doubt helped towards even more strength in depth in Paddington 2. At the centre of both is the Brown family, who adopts the bear after finding him on Paddington Station at the end of his journey from the Peruvian jungle. The plot of the first film depends heavily on a tried-and-tested formula: the no-nonsense paterfamilias – Mr Brown is a risk analyst in an insurance company – getting back in touch with his kinder, fun-loving side. With the unfailingly genial Hugh Bonneville in the role, that side is hardly submerged even when Mr Brown’s being a killjoy, but Bonneville is such good company that it’s hard to complain. It’s no surprise either that Sally Hawkins is gracefully eccentric as Mrs Brown but it’s worth noting, even so. Hawkins is one of those performers (like Judi Dench) that treat each part they play with equal respect. There’s not the faintest suggestion of taking things easy here because this is primarily a film for children.
That’s not quite the case with Nicole Kidman, whose involvement in the first film was a major casting coup. She’s the chief baddie of Paddington, a taxidermist who captures exotic animals to stuff and display in the Natural History Museum. It’s an impeccable turn, except that Kidman gives off throughout an air of condescension. That’s why the choice of Hugh Grant to play the villain of the second piece 2 was so shrewd. In interviews, Grant is reliably self-deprecating (witness the BAFTA/BBC documentary celebrating his career, which also aired this Christmas). His recent screen renaissance began with a role as an over-the-hill thesp in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016). Paddington’s adversary Phoenix Buchanan is also a has-been actor. Egotistical and rapacious, Buchanan is, if not exactly a master of disguise, a repeatedly amusing quick-change (and funny-voice) artist. Grant is the right man to play him and enjoys himself hugely. The enjoyment is infectious.
Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin are the Brown children. Others who feature in both films include Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton, as the voices of Paddington’s ursine uncle and aunt; Julie Walters, as the family’s housekeeper (Scottish accent); Jim Broadbent, as a genial antique shop owner (German accent); and Peter Capaldi, an obnoxious neighbourhood watchman (London accent), who comes over as a much more baleful proposition in the later, post-2016 film.
Best of all is Ben Whishaw, who voices the eponymous hero in both films. (It’s a droll coincidence, of course, that, a few months after Paddington 2 arrived in cinemas, Hugh Grant and Whishaw also partnered successfully in a rather different screen relationship, the one between Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott, in the BBC’s A Very English Scandal.) Whishaw’s reading of Paddington’s lines is exquisitely witty yet beautifully straight and sincere. He engages so completely with the anthropomorphic bear that he creates a truly lovable character – funny, self-effacing, principled, well-mannered (but never a pain in the neck). I’m not in the least joking, let alone damning with faint praise, when I say I think his Paddington is one of the very best things Ben Whishaw has done. (I think the same about George Clooney’s voice characterisation in Fantastic Mr Fox.) Paul King’s two films thoroughly deserve their success. They’re authentic family films in the sense that there’s plenty in them for different generations to enjoy – something more than just the pleasure that older family members get watching younger ones having a good time. Ben Whishaw’s voice is the epitome of that something more.
24 December 2019, 31 December 2019
[1] According to Wikipedia, Paddington cost $65m (gross) to make and has box-office takings of $268m; Paddington 2 cost $40m (surprisingly much less) and has taken around $227m. On Rotten Tomatoes, Paddington has a 97% fresh rating (from 157 reviews). Paddington 2 has achieved the rare distinction of 100% fresh (from 237 reviews).
