Three siblings discover an enchanted forest and a host of new magical friends.
In The Magic Faraway Tree the Thompson family move to the countryside where the father plans to make a living with his own recipe pasta sauce, and I can tell you I haven’t felt so invested in a homegrown tomato crop since the first lockdown.
Enid Blyton’s hugely popular book is relocated to the present day, with all three children (Delilah Bennett-Cardy’s brilliantly eye-rolling teen feminist Beth, gaming obsessed Joe and the near-silent Fran) horrified when their dad moves the family to a cobwebby barn with no WiFi.
Stay at home parent Tim (an enjoyably irritating Andrew Garfield, a deserving eye-rollee for Bennett-Cardy) is a dreamer who harks back to his own sun-dappled childhood as he tries to navigate modern life, designing a “scratchel”, or satchel for screens at dinner time, made from old oven gloves. Mum Polly (Claire Foy) is an inventor who resigns when her bosses refuse to remove an all-seeing camera from her new fridge design. With no income and no home, they decamp to the tumbledown barn, payment for which is dependent on the success of the pasta sauce.
With both parents busy, and Beth and Joe (Phoenix Laroche) paralysed without their electronic devices, Fran (Billie Gadsdon) ventures out into the fields and up to the forest, which the locals had previously warned them not to enter. In a clearing she finds the magic faraway tree, inhabited by various fairy folk, and topped by a ladder reaching above the clouds.
Updating The Magic Faraway Tree to the 21st century works well, fighting stereotypes and cliches on behalf of the children in the audience, before sending up those of the parents at the very end in the brief mid-credits scene.
I loved Moonface, whose outfit is nothing like how I ever imagined but perfectly fits the aloof and rather wounded character (wonderfully played by Nonso Anozie). Nicola Coughlan makes a caring and open Silky. And more of the Angry Pixie and Mr Watzisname (who appeared to be channelling Neil from The Young Ones) in any sequels, please.
The tree, and its transforming glade, are beautiful, the little houses and the slide down the inside of the tree exactly how I always imagined them. We are also blessed with the usual collection of National Treasures, several of whom make up The Great Know-All, the kind of creature I’d expect to see in Monty Python And The Holy Grail, and which fittingly boasts Michael Palin as one of its heads.
On the train back to university after the long vac when your parents won’t give you a lift
I read Enid Blyton books voraciously as a child, though admittedly a lot of my love for them was food-related: the picnics of heaps of tomatoes, hard boiled eggs and lashings of ginger beer; the tuck boxes; the midnight feasts. Reading them to my children years later, I was reminded that while she certainly wasn’t the best writer, Blyton was an expert at creating exciting worlds that were perilous but which belonged entirely to children.
While there is plenty of very mild peril in the film, the balancing darkness required for the best children’s stories is mostly missing, despite Rebecca Ferguson’s gleefully witchy turn as the evil headmistress Dame Snap (a title downgraded from the original Dame Slap, though this is wittily addressed in the movie). Apart from warnings about eating too many magical sweets, and worries their new home might fall down, the big bad wolf is in the present, in the form of tech, whether the children’s addictively numbing electronic devices or Polly’s spy fridge.
Still, if you are scared of heights you might struggle (and I’m not joking here) with the ladder at the top of the tree. The lands themselves are small and sweet, if a little cheap-looking: the Land of Goodies a pastel-hued, garden-sized pick ‘n’ mix with giant flying saucers zipping through the sky; The Land of Birthdays run by a bunch of blond, satin shell-suited elves, who do a (very) mean line in celebratory wishes.
Movies are always imploring children to keep believing in magic lest it should disappear forever. It’s a big ask; as if modern youth don’t have enough to deal with, every December they are reminded they are also responsible for Santa’s sleigh staying airborne, Christmas Spirit and the jobs of thousands of North Pole elves. In Faraway Tree they are additionally berated for not keeping in touch with the elves and the pixies as they grow up. Truly there are as many similarities between the real world and the magical one as differences, and writer Simon Farnaby shows clearly that what distracts them now are kinds of magic in themselves. Smartphones, computer games, WiFi; all are accepted and adored without question by children, in parallel with the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, though the electronic versions arrive too soon and close off children’s worlds.
The Magic Faraway Tree will appeal to younger children and maybe their tween siblings, and of course their nostalgic parents. It’s a gently sparkling comfort blanket with a smattering of jokes. It is spot on about the battle to balance the best of our own childhoods with the best of modern life though – while neither of my now-hulking teens would come to see the film with me, even with an Xbox Game Pass as bait, like all kids they know deep down that even the highest spec smartphone can’t beat being four years old and seeing a train driver waving to you while pulling out of the local station.
There is a last minute disaster involving – you’ve guessed it – those tomatoes, averted thanks to some derring-do from children and magical folk alike, involving a run-in with Dame Snap. Their escape involves a giant potato and a succession of very impressive farts. Did Enid Blyton ever include fart gags in her 600+ children’s books? No. Can a British family film even exist without one? Also, no.
Note: There is a very short mid-credits scene.
Missed anything? Check out my Magic Faraway Tree plot and ending recap, and my article Magic, modernity and meaning in the Faraway Tree.
Watch the trailer for The Magic Faraway Tree here: