This United Kingdom, English speaking film deals with series of popular novels written by British writer, Enid Blyton.
THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE. Starring: Claire Foy, Andrew Garfield, Delilah Bennett Cardy, Phoenix Laroche, Billie Gadson, and many others. Directed by Ben Gregor. Rated G (very mild slapstick violence and some scenes may scare very young children). 104 min.
Review by Peter Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
Three Enid Blyton novels are covered in the movie and they take place in an enchanted forest where a huge magical tree grows, which titles the film. The trees’s huge branches reach to the sky and tiny houses are carved into its trunk. Both the woods and the house are discovered by three children – Joe, Beth and Ben – who have moved into a house near The Enchanted Wood with their loving father and mother. Elves also live in the enchanted wood, and the children interact with them. The Faraway Tree is inhabited by multiple magical people, and the children befriend the magical people by inhabiting the fantastical lands within the Enchanted Forest with them. In doing so, the children learn how to rekindle their own bonding with their parents through active fantasy adventuring.
The three Enid Blyton series covered by the movie are: “The Magic Faraway Tree”, “The Folk of the Faraway Tree”, and “Up the Faraway Tree”. Nicola Coughlan, Claire Foy, Andrew Garfield star with Nonso Anozie, Dustin Demi-Burns, Rebecca Ferguson, and others in screen writer, Simon Farnaby’s, take on Blyton’s classic work. Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield play the parents of the children who discover the Magic Faraway Tree. Andrew Garfield, in particular, is a parent who constantly behaves in the best interests of his children. He is the model of a “good” family man.
The film stays faithful to the detail of Enid Blyton’s Enchanted Wood series about the Magic Tree, and provides a captivating adventure tale that captures the spirit of childhood enjoyment. The stories it covers are unnatural, but the movie provides whimsical distraction that slots entirely, amiably into youthful enjoyment. The film aims for, and achieves, positive family appeal, and engages in adult viewing of childhood imagination that wins over adult logic. Through all the whimsy, the film provides a highly creative film adaptation of Enid Blyton’s original work.
This is an impressive fantasy series that actively fosters childhood involvement that has adult, family appeal. The movie itself modernises Enid Blyton’s books. Dark events and surprising twists abound, but good children survive them all with the help of loving, positive parents. Excellent production design and special effects render The Magic Faraway Tree in vivid detail, where the magic of childhood-play shapes outcomes that yield cohesive family togetherness. Through it all, Ben Gregor delivers events in a creative way that preserves the positive appeal of Enid Blyton’s work and shows that entering into, and embracing, a child’s fantasy life will yield lasting rewards.
Reviewed by Peter Sheehan, an Associate of Jesuit Media