‘I believe in magic. I believe in magic. I believe in magic.’…… The Magic Faraway Tree movie

Is there anything more magical than revisiting your childhood with your own grandchildren and finding that they are as enchanted as you were, and indeed still am. I took 3 of my grandchildren to see the Magic Faraway Tree movie yesterday. I was so nervous and excited all at the same time, worried that they might have wrecked MY book.. but I came out with a huge smile on my face, as did my granddaughters.

If you’ve read some of my blogs, you will know that The Magic Faraway Tree was a huge part of my childhood. It was more than a book. Enid Blyton featured heavily in my reading material, and I was an avid reader from a young age. The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, The Wishing Chair and of course, my very favourite, The Magic Faraway Tree. My own adventures in the Enchanted Wood and up the Faraway Tree were the reason I survived childhood and have carried me through to this third trimester of my life.

My childhood was a mixed bag. Second youngest of 12 children, with the most wonderful loving Mum and Grandmother who both enriched my life and my imagination. My Irish grandmother told me stories of Ireland, the banshee, the leprechauns, the selkies or seal folk, the fairies. All of them made me long to be part of that world. I used to think Mum wasn’t quite as imaginative but as I saw her with my children, I realised she was, just in a more gentle way than my Grandmother. But she fed my imagination by encouraging me to read the books that would blow my little mind. But in stark contrast with all this wonder and magic going on, behind the scenes I was being abused by my oldest brother who was quite a bit older than me, making my childhood also one of secrets, shame and pain.

As a result, I developed this wonderful ability to take myself out of the physical situation I was in and transport myself into a world of pure imagination (to quote Willie Wonka). While bad stuff happened to that little girl, I was safe, up in the Faraway Tree with Silky, having a cup of tea and eating pop cakes. That kind of separation has lasting effects yes, and I still carry those effects today in my 60’s, but boy oh boy, what a blessing it was. If your mind feels safe, you can survive an awful lot.

In 2018, while I was having radiation treatment for breast cancer, I would listen to Kate Winslet read the story on the one hour trip down for treatment and the hour back up the mountains again. Oh the magic was there all over again. By the time I got there for my treatment, I was off in another land high above the clouds. It was pure bliss. So again, the Magic Faraway Tree came to my rescue. Then a few years ago, I was driving my granddaughter Amelia back to my place for a week and I put on the same audiobook with the dulcet tones of Kate Winslet and Amelia was as enchanted as I’d ever been. Her eyes were wide and the smile was glued to her face. She concentrated on that for the 4 hour drive with barely a movement. Not bad for a 5 year old. The book working it’s magic on a new generation.

When I did my first solo exhibition, From Fractured to Fairytale, the first part of my life was told in the style of the Magic Faraway Tree as it was of such importance to me. The images attached are all from that exhibition. The child depicts me as a child, escaping to spend time with my friends in the Enchanted Wood and up the Faraway Tree.

But anyway, back to the movie. As I said, I was terrified that they might take the book that had been my saviour or take my magical friends who saw me through those years, and ruin them. I don’t know how I could have coped with that. I didn’t re-read the book to refresh my memory as I wanted to give the movie a fair go with no comparisons. I saw the trailers a while ago and was angry to see they had set it in modern times with the kids whinging about not having wi-fi or internet and thought, just let us enjoy the easier times where we weren’t hit with information 24/7. I also noticed that the characters were changed from the original descriptions and thought, here we go! I’m not always a fan of blind casting in EVERY movie. Sometimes it’s fantasic, or it’s fine but other times, it jars when the author has written very clear physical descriptions of a character. But that’s a discussion for another day. Anyway, I was apprehensive about what these changes would make to the final outcome. However it certainly was not going to stop me from going to see it.

I was in Canberra with 3 of my granddaughters yesterday so we all (my son included) took ourselves off to the cinema and see it we did. Amelia is 8 now and the twins are 4, so I hoped it wouldn’t be too scary for the littler girls. But they are all as addicted to story as me, so I needn’t have worried about that either. They loved it. The theatre goers were mainly people my age if I’m honest. Some kids but mainly older women who looked as excited as I felt. It was the book of our generation. Our own kids had so much fantasy of their own, with The Never Ending Story, The Labyrinth, Drop Dead Fred, etc, that they sadly didn’t need ours. I think this next generation need as much of every generations fantasy as they can get.

I was about to type that I was entranced from the moment the Faraway Tree bowed to them, but it was way earlier than that, it was rivetting from the start. Andrew Garfield and Clare Foy play the parents who are worn out by the cut and thrust of everyday life and when she loses her job, they decide to revisit an old dream of moving to the country and growing tomatoes. They buy a house, sight unseen and shift the family there. No power, no wi-fi, just a dirty old barn. But the laughs started early, well before we met the Tree and it’s inhabitants.

It was laugh out loud funny and the cast played those laughs beautifully, with the right amount of slapstick to please the kids and the perfect subtle, understated lines to suit the adults. The scenery of the English countryside was absolutely what I saw in my head when I read it. The majestic tree in the middle of the Enchanted Wood was perfect. And the houses of the inhabitants were so wonderful, I wanted to retreat back to childhood and snuggle down there like I used to in my mind. From the wood carved furniture to the delightful windows and of course the slippery dip, it was straight out of the book.

Now let me talk about the characters but remember, I am saying a lot of this from memory. I will read the book again soon and I’m sure some opinions will change but like I said, I wanted to see it without comparisons. The actors all played the characters brilliantly. Nicola Coughlin was incredible as Silky with the same slightly needy but sweet and bubbly personality. The Angry Pixie didn’t feature a lot but was quite amusing in his rantings. The Saucepan Man was hilarious as was Mr Whathisname. Moonface played the role beautifully but he didn’t look like he should have. Now before you all jump on me and say it’s a matter of colour or race, that’s not it. In the book, Moonface had a round face; a full moon. This one has hair in the shape of a crescent moon. To be honest, in the trailer, I wasn’t sure it was moonface as I didn’t notice the crescent shape, because I was too busy trying to take it all in. So while the actor himself was lovely in the role, the appearance was wrong. I’m not sure if it was that which left a little bit to be desired but the character just seemed to lack a bit of oomph. Moonface was such a dynamic character. This one felt a bit disconnected but not horrendous. He was still enjoyable to watch.

Dame Washalot probably disappointed me more than anyone, but in saying that, hear me out. I think this opinion comes completely from me. In my mind I always imagined my Mum as Dame Washalot, so I put a sweet, loving, gentle persona on her, just like Mum. In my childish mind, if I got into trouble in the tree or the lands above, I would have run to the Dame to protect me, hiding my head in her voluminous lap, as I did with my own Mum. I think she was probably a bit brash in the storyline, while I longed to see that sweetness that I miss so much, so I’m going to take this character analysis as my own problem, not the movies.

The Know-Alls were great, with the magnificent Michael Palin from Monty Python and Lenny Henry as two of them. Palin steals the show whatever he does and this was no exception. Dame Snap played her part well, though of course it was the bleakest of all the lands above. If I’m honest, I am a little over there always needing to be some awful villain in movies and of course Dame Snap, who is an original character was one and the other was Jennifer Saunders playing the awful grandmother. I love Jennifer Saunders and while she played it beautifully, it was, in my opinion, a character superfluous to the ‘original’ storyline. This is where my dilemma lies. Instead of creating a completely new storyline based on the original series of books, they did a bit of an updated version that felt it wanted to be the original story but didn’t quite get there. I know that sounds convulted but hear me out.

Andrew Garfield and Clare Foy played the children’s parents beautifully and their storyline, wonderfully different to the book, was totally engrossing. But they could have done all of this in a way which would have made more sense. I honestly thought when it started that it was going to be the children of the one of the original children, but that wasn’t how it played out and so it seemed they just updated the book and the characters into a different era for no good reason. It is, in my opinion, a missed opportunity. All three of the original (book) kids could have bought their own kids back to the Faraway Tree in a series of movies. Franchises my friends, franchises.

The father, Timothy used to live in the countryside, so you would imagine he had visited the tree in his childhood. His children had the updated names of the original children, though in different age order. Fanny became Fran, Joe was the same (though spelled Jo in the books) and Bessie became Beth. In the book, Jo was oldest, then Bessie then Fanny but in the movie, those ages are completely reversed with Beth being the oldest and Jo being the youngest.

I think it would have made more sense to have had father Timothy as Joe who went back to the countryside of his childhood and the children were just his kids, not rehashes of the original kids. This was actually alluded to, but it didn’t make sense if you know the book. If you aren’t going to make a true rendition of a beloved storyline, do it so that it fits cohesively and stands as a story on it’s own that still fits in with the original book. Timmy was the ‘best dog in the world” in the Famous Five series, not one of the Faraway kids.

But I am probably just being nitpicky now, so let me finish on this note. I walked out with a smile on my face and that same old yearning to be in that tree with a cup of tea and one of Silky’s pop cakes. The girls walked out new fans of the magic of Enid Blyton. Even Stuart, their 37 year old father, laughed all the way through and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a magical adventure that saw me climbing that tree back to safety and protection. I fell asleep last night to the ‘wisha wisha wisha’ noise of the Faraway Tree. But, I have had almost 24 hours to ponder the movie, and ponder it I have, so I have probably found flaws in the storyline that have more to do with my love of the original books rather than the actual movie. Missed opportunities in my opinion? Yes.. But all in all, a damn good movie, full of joy, full of fun and full of magic. And boy we need more of that these days.

If you were a fan of the book, run, don’t walk to see this. Bring a grandchild of your own, or borrow one if you need to. Or go alone. I promise you, you won’t be alone for long. There will be others in there who have gone to recapture that magic we all felt from the moment we met the Magic Faraway Tree. I will go back and see it again on my own, just so I can drink it all in without the adorable questions I got all the way through it. I loved seeing it with the grandkids and I loved how they put their own slant on it, but now I want to be selfish and enjoy it just for me.

Happy reliving the best parts of your childhood……Livvy xxx