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The Magic Faraway Tree (Me) (Kids)


I probably read these books as a kid (can't remember) but I certainly read them to my kids a few years ago, so the whole family took a trip to the Palace cinema to check out this new film version. It's adapted from the Enid Blyton book(s) by Simon Farnaby, the writer of Paddington 2, Wonka and Mindhorn, and directed by Ben Gregor, a British TV journeyman. The cast is chock-full of screen dignitaries, from Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, to Python Michael Palin, to Dame Judi Dench as a talking fridge (!).


Modernising this classic kids' book series from the 30s and 40s means adding some stuff about screen (over)usage, the splintering of the family unit, and the desire to get back to the basics of life. In this case, the Thompsons go rural in a rundown barn with old tractors, and chickens living on the stove. The family is made up of Tim and Polly (Garfield and Foy), and the three children, Beth, Joe and Fran, played by Delilah Bennet-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche and Billie Gadsdon, respectively. Gadsdon is the pick of them, she's believable is the quiet kid that comes out of her shell when the magic kicks in.


As a perfunctory run-down of the story, the parents suddenly become house-less in London, so decide to move the family to the countryside. The barn-cum-house is on the edge of the Enchanted Wood, home to the titular tree. When Fran receives an invitation from Silky the fairy (Nicola Coughlan), she disappears for the day to attend. Here she meets all the reprobate tree-dwellers, Moonface (Nonso Anozie), Dame Washalot (Jessica Gunning) and Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns), to name a few.


There's another story scaffolding the kids' adventures up tree, but it's less interesting and really only acts as a motivational device. In short, Tim tries to grow tomatoes to make a pasta sauce, they go maggoty, the kids save the day. Sorry to spoil, but it's clearly not the reason to go to this film. The non-magic adults are window dressing to events, and though Garfield and Foy are a winning combo, they run very close to making this The Magic Faraway Twee. The multitude of cameos is fun - Mark Heap, Lenny Henry, Tom Meetan, Claire Keelan, Farnaby, Jennifer Saunders all enjoy themselves, and Rebecca Ferguson chews through all she can get her snaggle-tooth into as Dame Snap.


There are a few cliches (the old 'I'm definitely NOT doing that!' CUT to the character doing that), and some minor narrative queries, but not enough to derail the enterprise. I reckon Blyton nerds can feel satisfied with the way this turned out.

The Magic Faraway Tree is still showing around the traps. 

See also:

Any time I see Mark Heap on a screen, I remember his Brian in Edgar Wright's TV gem, Spaced (1999-2001). A couple of other good films centred on three British kids are Bryan Forbes' Whistle Down the Wind (1961) and Lionel Jeffries' The Railway Children (1970).

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