We’re in the middle of Lent. We edge ever closer toward the most profound week on the liturgical calendar, capped by the holiest day of the year. There is a lot to think about and a lot to pray over in the remaining Lenten season.
So, it is only natural that I’m thinking about a movie series with a computer-animated bear in a winter coat and red hat.
I am not going to shoehorn the premise of the “Paddington” movies into a treatise on Christian imagery as it pertains to the passion of Our Lord. But just as Sundays during Lent offer us a brief respite from the more austere and hopefully spiritually authentic elements, consider these films as a similar break and maybe a viable option on how to spend a restful Sunday afternoon.
Hollywood taking on a beloved children’s book is usually a harbinger of disappointment. If Disney can do what it has done to Snow White, what magical imaginary character is safe?
“Paddington” in its innocence and simplicity would be an easy target for “modern” thinking filmmakers to retool and reimagine into something unrecognizable from the original.
Even when Hollywood gets something right, the temptation to go back to the well (not the wishing well, but the one with the pot of gold at the bottom) is too strong to resist. Sequels are not an attempt to recapture the “magic” but rather to recapture more box office receipts. But the number of sequels that were equal or superior to their original material can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.
“Paddington” is currently in its third iteration. Three films and the miracle of miracles, each one stands on its own as sweet, innocent, and gentle as the other.
Why should we care about a third installment of a film about a bear in a red hat who lives quite “normally” in central London but has a series of incredible and hard-to-believe adventures?
We should care because these films are the product of all the alchemy the Hollywood brain trust tries to conjure in their dungeons underneath the facades of their movie studios. Ninety-nine percent of these alchemists fail. And even when the sequels they produce achieve as great, or greater, a result as their original formula, the final product is usually not something appropriate for the entire family.
One of my brothers with a black Irish sense of humor insists “The Godfather” and “Godfather II” are “family” films. I have another brother who claims “Gladiator” is nothing but a chick flick with swords and sandals. Suffice it to say, I do not rely too heavily on either of those siblings for sound cinematic criticism.
Yet here I sit writing about three films about an imaginary bear in a stylized and idealized London that does not exist. What is real, what really matters about these films, is that in a children’s entertainment universe that is often toxic, and most times deprived of artistic oxygen, “Paddington” shines like a super nova. It has no agenda, which, in this day and age, is an agenda all its own. Countless “family” films are peppered with plot lines and characters that are not good for the soul, whether child or adult.
If you cannot accept a bear living in Peru — with a taste for orange marmalade and knowing how to make it — who can navigate the globe to get himself to Europe, you are missing the point. We are asked to suspend our disbelief in a myriad film genres, so talking bears and families who are perfectly comfortable with living in the same house as an apex predator are part of the admission ticket.
The “Paddington” movies are what family films used to be. And it is an indication that with a little effort and solid doses of artistic talent, they can still be. Like the best family entertainment — these days as rare as satisfactory sequels — there truly is something for everyone. There may not be an Easter message in any of these films, but there is certainly an implied patina of humor, grace, innocence, and happiness.
Maybe it’s not that far off from Easter after all. And now I’m craving some orange marmalade.
