The new movie about the lovable bear isn’t just adorable, it’s very much an immigrant tale.
Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins) and Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) in Paddington.
StudioCanal/Weinstein Company
Paddington (Whishaw) in Paddington
StudioCanal/Weinstein Company
I hadn't expected Paddington to bring me to tears.
But it did, early in the film, during a perfectly understated but iconic moment from the children's books, written by Michael Bond, on which the movie is based. In the scene, on a train platform, Paddington (who's yet to be given that name) has made his way to London as a stowaway on a cargo ship — he was sent there by his aunt, who's headed to the Home for Retired Bears and can no longer take care of him.
Standing by the lost and found department with a sign around his neck reading, "Please look after this bear," Paddington waits, with hopeful patience, for someone to take him with them. People pass by without a second glance, in a hurry, indifferent. (The fact that Paddington's ursine, and can talk, is delightfully treated as unremarkable.) Then, the Brown family comes along, and, to Mr. Brown's (Hugh Bonneville) consternation — "Probably selling something," he mutters, trying to get his children to avoid eye contact — his wife (Sally Hawkins) stops.
It's a sequence of great poignance — quietly but devastatingly so, given Paddington's overall air of mild-mannered charm. In that second, the film connects its fictional foundling bear to the children who were evacuated during World War II, while also drawing a throughline to the present day by positioning the character as an immigrant in search of a new home, and wondering if the one he chose even wants him.
I bawled, and it wasn't the only time.
The deeply satisfying Paddington manages to remain true to the spirit of the books while giving some very contemporary context to their story of an orphaned South American bear who's taken in by the Brown family to live in their townhouse at 32 Windsor Gardens.
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