Rating 7/10
The Magic Faraway Tree is the sort of sweet, PG-rated fantasy jaded adults might dismiss as overly twee, yet its sheer imagination won me over. What begins with a family trying to make a life in the English countryside soon turns into a crazy adventure involving impossible lands and three siblings who gradually learn how to help their struggling parents.
This is adapted from Enid Blyton’s beloved books, beginning with The Enchanted Wood in 1939. They’ve been childhood staples in Britain for generations while remaining largely unknown to American readers. Rather than simply transplant Blyton’s original children to the screen, Simon Farnaby, co-writer of Paddington 2 and Wonka, created the contemporary Thompson family and used Blyton’s characters and mysterious places as the foundation for a new story directed by Ben Gregor.
Tim and Polly Thompson (Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy) have had enough of city life. Polly is an inventor. She quits her job when the company manipulates her latest invention in an unethical way. Ever the optimist, Tim seizes the moment to pursue their long-deferred dream: move to the English countryside, fix up a ramshackle barn, and make a living selling home-grown tomato sauce. Their three screen-addicted children are less enthusiastic. Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), the eldest, is incessantly irritated and desperate to return to her old life. Her belligerent attitude is so relentlessly grating that you wish they’d left her in the city. Fortunately, her siblings are nicer company. Joe (Phoenix Laroche) would rather play video games, while their youngest daughter, Fran (Billie Gadsdon), hasn’t spoken in years. Then she discovers their backyard has better entertainment options than Wi-Fi.
In the nearby woods stands the Magic Faraway Tree, a gateway to an ever-changing assortment of fantastical worlds. Soon, all three adventurers climb into far-flung realms involving endless sweets, birthday wishes, and supernatural spells. Their parents remain blissfully unaware of all this. However, as the family’s business venture develops, the children’s access to a little magic may come in handy.
The joy is meeting the residents of this absurd universe, each one looking as though Elton John had opened his closet in the 1970s and told the actors to have at it. Ann Maskrey’s vividly wild costumes and Alexandra Walker’s storybook sets make every arrival feel like an event. Nicola Coughlan, so funny on Derry Girls and Bridgerton, is all effervescent sweetness as Silky, the tree’s resident fairy; Nonso Anozie gives Moonface, the tree’s genial, round-faced resident, a grand warmth; Dustin Demri-Burns turns the hard-of-hearing Saucepan Man into something resembling the Tin Man wearing cookware; and Jessica Gunning, fresh from Baby Reindeer, is the indefatigable Dame Washalot.
The saga keeps finding ways to surprise you with each arrival. Jennifer Saunders brings a bossy haughtiness to Grandma. Meanwhile Rebecca Ferguson goes way over the top as Dame Snap, a headmistress crowned with an asymmetrical coiffure that seems to defy gravity. Hiran Abeysekera’s exasperated Angry Pixie and Oliver Chris’s hazy Mr. Watzisname are delights, while Michael Palin, Lenny Henry and Simon Russell Beale show up as heads of the Great Know-All, a Pythonesque oracle. Oh! I almost forgot: Judi Dench voices the family’s smart refrigerator, which knows everyone’s dietary habits. Her frequent suggestions of wine to Tim keep outing his drinking preferences to the entire family. That’s how cheeky this picture can be.
Every day, a different land rotates into place at the top of the leafy wonder, complete with its own theme, inhabitants, and peculiar rules. Fran first visits the Land of Goodies, a sugar-fueled paradise of sweets and chocolates; later destinations include a know-it-all domain, a world of spells, and the far less inviting realm of Dame Snap and her nightmarish school.
The Land of Birthdays was my favorite, envisioned as a kind of roller-skating disco party where every day is your birthday and the Birthday Elves grant wishes. Naturally, our young trio squanders all three wishes, with undesirable consequences. Isabella Summers (keyboardist and founding member of Florence + the Machine) gives the sequence a dance-inflected pulse. Here, Maskrey’s costumes and Walker’s production design turn the sequence into an explosion of color and detail. That marriage of music, costume, and production design is what I loved most: everyone seems to be working toward the same singular vision. Each kingdom has its own personality, but this one is the most exuberant.
The cumulative effect is like Alice in Wonderland, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and The Wizard of Oz in a blender. Yet this still feels like its own peculiar thing. At one point, the mustachioed Mr. Oom Boom Boom (Mark Heap) pops open a little window and bellows at the kids with all the officious bluster of the Emerald City gatekeeper greeting Dorothy; I half expected him to say “Who rang that bell? ” and “Now, state your business!” That parade of oddballs is where things really come alive. Apparently this is what happens when Britain makes a children’s fantasy and everyone answers the phone.
What works best is its complete lack of embarrassment about being a silly bit of whimsy. It does begin to lose a little steam toward the end, when the freewheeling pleasure of discovering different worlds gives way to the more conventional business of resolving the plot. The escape from Dame Snap relies on an extended bit of low bodily humor that feels strikingly out of place in an otherwise sweet and tasteful narrative. Thankfully, it’s a brief lapse. Garfield and Foy give the finale its emotional lift, making the family’s growing closeness genuinely touching.
The film opened in the UK back in March and performed well there before arriving in American theaters in August. I can’t prove nobody knows it exists in the U.S., but a $1.37 million opening weekend certainly makes a persuasive case. That’s a shame, because anyone with affection for amazing worlds will find plenty to love here. The Magic Faraway Tree may have arrived in America with barely a whisper, but this is one branch worth climbing out on.
08-25-26