Live-action adaptations of cartoons usually suck. Too often, they’re soulless corporate cash-grabs, the storytelling and craftsmanship subordinate to product placement, shoehorned popular music, and obnoxious sequences that seem designed only for the trailers. So when an adaptation prioritizes artistic integrity over commercial appeal — without sacrificing it — it demands special attention.
A fine example is Paddington, comedy director Paul King’s 2014 rendering of Michael Bond’s famous bear. Like its peers, it includes product placement, a soundtrack of well-known songs, and wacky scenes fit for a promotional campaign. But it outclasses the field because it’s not just a financial venture, but an enchanting, heartfelt artistic vision.
From the start, Paddington makes interesting creative decisions. It opens with a black-and-white newsreel of a geographer visiting “Darkest Peru” and finding a new bear species. To his surprise, they’re intelligent enough to learn English, and he teaches them about the inviting, caring city of London… and marmalade. Years later, the bears’ nephew (voiced by Ben Whishaw) lives with them; the CG bears perfectly match the physical sets.
An earthquake destroys their home and kills the uncle. The aunt puts her nephew on a ship to London to find himself a new family. There, the cub struggles to find someone who’ll take him in — until he meets the Browns. The father, Henry (Hugh Bonneville), is a risk analyst hesitant to shelter a bear, but his wife, an illustrator named Mary (Sally Hawkins), invites the cub to stay for a night and names him Paddington.
Given the difficulty of making a fully-CG character look real, it’s best to judge character animation not just on realism, but also expressiveness and function. Paddington himself strikes a good balance between “cartoon” and “real bear.” Far from uncanny, he looks adorable, and his expressions and movements feel as convincing as the humans’ — no doubt helped by Whishaw’s excellent voice acting.
Soon after Paddington arrives, an evil taxidermist (Nicole Kidman) learns about him and commits to locating and stuffing him for an exhibit in London’s Natural History Museum. Kidman brilliantly plays this role; she’s nasty and a proper threat, but she hams it up enough to maintain the film’s light tone.
At this point, most people can predict how the story will pan out and how the characters will change. The themes are obvious: family, belonging, trust, and being oneself. Though not new territory, Paddington competently traverses it. And from here the movie’s creativity blossoms.
A calypso street band periodically adds powerful diegetic music. There’s a beautiful recurring motif of human characters interacting inside models such as a dollhouse and a toy train. In one scene, Paddington walks through a film projection screen and into a fantasy world. The climactic museum break-in includes some of Paddington’s coolest shots, like one where characters hide next to a staircase. Bluntly, this film looks outstanding.
Paddington is delightful: approachable for all ages, light but not lightweight, shot with style, and cuddly like a teddy bear. Pair it with a marmalade sandwich for the best results.
