Variety: 'Magic Faraway Tree' Is Sweet but Unfunny
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- "The Magic Faraway Tree", directed by Ben Gregor and based on Enid Blyton's fantasy series, outgrossed Pixar's "Hoppers" on U.K. screens in March, opens Stateside this weekend, and has two sequels already greenlit.
- Screenwriter Simon Farnaby — a co-writer of the "Paddington" films and author of 2023's "Wonka" — blends elements from "The Secret Garden," "The Chronicles of Narnia" and the Paddington films into the script.
- Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy star as Tim and Polly Thompson, a London couple who quit corporate life to move their family to a derelict countryside barn, anchoring the film with what the review calls unusually specific adult performances.
- The supporting cast includes Nicola Coughlan as fairy Silky, Nonso Anozie as Moonface, Jessica Gunning as Dame Washalot, Dustin Demri-Burns as the Saucepan Man, and Rebecca Ferguson as a villain in a precarious wig.
- Variety's review calls the film "sweet, even a bit twee, and unfailingly nice" but "surprisingly unfunny," with stakes that never feel "urgently high" despite a threat of financial ruin, and gags that are "complete non-starters."
- Blyton's legacy is being rehabilitated through a wave of adaptations, including seven BBC "Malory Towers" series since 2020 and a 2023 "Famous Five" TV remake directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.
Why it matters: The film's U.K. outgrossing of Pixar's "Hoppers" and the immediate greenlighting of two sequels — before its U.S. opening even opens — confirms Blyton's sanitized IP is commercially viable family entertainment. For studios betting on nostalgic British children's properties, this delivers a profitable template, even though Variety finds the result too soft and stakes-free to achieve classic status.
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