Winnie the Pooh

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, where Christopher Robin plays, you'll find the enchanted neighborhood of Christopher's childhood days...

     

     It's been quite a while since moviegoers took a trip to the Hundred Acre Wood with Pooh Bear and his friends (the last time Pooh was on the silver screen was Pooh's Heffalump Movie back in 2005), but this year's Winnie the Pooh is a welcome return for everyone's favorite "bear of very little brain." Yesterday I got the chance to attend an advance screening of Winnie the Pooh at the AMC Orpheum Theater on 3rd Avenue, and I was thoroughly thrilled with the movie. It powerfully retained all of the charm and simple beauty of previous Winnie the Pooh movies and cartoons (like 1997's direct-to-video Pooh's Grand Adventure, the television series The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and the 2000 theatrical release The Tigger Movie), proving itself as an excellent next chapter, so to speak, in the bookish series. 

     Perhaps the most winning element of the movie is the childlike innocence and naivete of the characters, the heart of any Pooh work. It serves as the basis for many of the gags (I'm glad to say that Winnie the Pooh is both hilarious and enjoyable, both for kids and for the young at heart, but more on that later), as well as being the catalyst for the plot, as the core adventure here is based around Pooh and the gang attempting to save Christopher Robin from the monstrous "Backson," a creature created out of Owl's misreading of the phrase "back soon."

Owl explains (and misinterprets) Christopher Robin's note "Busy. Back Soon" to his friends.

     Of course, that's not the only quest at play for Pooh, who faces a "rather rumbly tummy" throughout the film, and accordingly is forever on the hunt for his beloved honey. This desire becomes part of the reason he joins the search for Eeyore's missing tail (the reward is a pot of honey), as well as a dominating element of his strategy for tracking down the Backson. Pooh's honey hunger also leads to a pretty hilarious and inventive musical number where the world transforms into the gooey treat right before his eyes! 

Winnie the Pooh spies his favorite snack.

     That number, an adorable tune called "Everything is Honey," is a stellar example, too, of the wondrous usage of music in Winnie the Pooh. In addition to several pieces performed by the vocal cast, the soundtrack features several songs by singer and actress Zooey Deschanel (some of which also involve her She & Him bandmate M.Ward). Deschanel's mellifluous voice fits in beautifully with the classic and comforting tone of the 

Pooh series, and hearing her contributions to this movie (particularly as a She & Him fan) was quite a delight! 

     This brings me to my final thoughts on Winnie the Pooh. It's particularly interesting to behold this movie from my particular vantage point (that of a twenty-year old and college sophomore in New York City). There was a great deal of Winnie the Pooh in my childhood, with the aforementioned Pooh's Grand Adventure in 1997 (when I was just six), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh opening as a ride in Walt Disney World Orlando in 1999, The Tigger Movie in 2000, and many other Pooh-related media all around me, and I loved every second of it. As such, I can't see or think about Pooh Bear without conjuring up memories of my days as a little kid, just as innocent and full of wonder as the adorably naive Pooh himself! Even without this association, though, Pooh and his friends represent something that is largely absent in today's world: wonder. This is something that has become all the more apparent to me while living in Manhattan— a place so full of things to wonder at and people who take those things for granted alike— that there is plenty in this world to smile about, and appreciate, and enjoy, and that it's more than worth it to take part in the wonder of the world around us rather than simply let it pass by. For kids and adults alike, Pooh's wonder and excitement     at all that happens around him is not only breath of fresh air, but a reminder about our own lives. And all that from a willy, nilly, silly, old bear.