Already a hit franchise-starter in its native Britain, this high-sugar slab of whimsy recruits 'Paddington 2' writer Simon Farnaby to update a dusty kidlit classic, with pleasant but overly cautious results.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
Entertainment Film Distributors If the children’s books of Enid Blyton have fallen out of fashion in classrooms and libraries — largely due to the racism and regressive gender politics throughout the British author’s oeuvre — they remain ripe for rehabilitation through adaptation. The BBC has churned out seven series of “Malory Towers” since 2020; in 2023, “The Famous Five” got a glossy TV makeover under the unlikely direction of Nicolas Winding Refn. Though big-screen success has largely eluded the Blyton brand up until now, “The Magic Faraway Tree” changed that in the spring. Based on Blyton’s series of fairy-folk fantasy adventures, Ben Gregor‘s amiably sparkly, necessarily modernized film wound up outgrossing Pixar’s “Hoppers” on U.K. screens back in March; whether or not American kids concur when the film releases Stateside this weekend, two sequels have already been greenlit.
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