Enid Blyton is one of the most popular children’s authors in English history, but
contemporary editors think they know better than she did. Hence, they have
re-written many of her books to conform to their ideologies. As a result, the
wicked school mistress formerly known as Dame Slap (because she often did) became
Dame Snap. Do you feel safer now? Or do you feel dumber? Sadly, it is Dame Snap
who serves as the bogeyman of Ben Gregor’s The Magic Faraway Tree, based
on the Bowdlerized Blyton, which opens today in theaters.
Resigning
on principle (because of her company’s intrusively dystopian refrigerator,
voiced by Dame Judi Dench), Polly Thompson’s family must quickly vacate their
company flat. However, her impossibly cheerful stay-at-home husband Tim wants
to use it as an opportunity to unplug their device-dependent children and
become a more functional family.
The
plan is to move back to the countryside where he spent his youth, building an unlikely
business around his pasta sauce. Initially, their rented farmhouse is quite
rustic. Technically, it is a barn, without electricity or wifi. However,
socially-stunted Fran soon learns her father’s tall tales of fairies and pixies
in the enchanted forest are true.
Silky,
the friendly fairy, invites Fran into her world, through the poral in the
titular tree. From there, Fran and the fairies may journey to yet other worlds,
with their own rules and dangers. Of course, the one world to avoid is that
ruled by Dame “Snap.” It takes some doing, but eventually Fran convinces her
gamer brother Joe and influencer sister Beth visit the Fairies’ tree. However,
Beth’s bad attitude might have dire consequences for their family.
In a
way, it is ironically fitting that Simon Farnaby’s adapted screenplay incorporates
the bowdlerized text, because the film in general feels entirely toothless.
Despite the ostensive dangers of the fantastical worlds, there are little
consequences for rule-breaking and bad decision-making. The film features
plenty of whimsical wardrobe, hairdressing, and makeup designs, but virtually
no sense of urgency.
Enid Blyton was a veritable one-woman Stratemeyer Syndicate. She
single-handedly wrote many long-running British children’s mystery series.
Blyton produced multiple volumes in her “Secret Seven,” “Barney Mysteries,” and
“Five Find-Outers” franchises, but her “The Famous Five” series was her
arguably her most popular. One of the five is a smart dog named Timmy, which surely
helps explain their success. They are supposed to be old-fashioned and skew
towards a youthful audience, so who better to shepherd their return to
television than Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of the Pusher trilogy
and Only God Forgives? Parents will be relieved to hear he adapted his
style to suit the material rather than vice versa, so the kids can safely watch
the six-episode The Famous Five when it premieres tomorrow on Hulu.
Supposedly,
George [not Georgina] Kirrin is the only person who visits her family’s
reputedly haunted Kirrin Island, so she is surprised to find Timmy wagging his
tail there, When she returns later with her three visiting cousins, Julian,
Anne, and Dick Barnard, they assume his owner was the dead man in the diving
suit sprawled on the beach. In a Refn film, Timmy would similarly wind up
leaving with the assassin who massacres the four children during the climax,
but that won’t happen here. If the cousins get killed, Timmy will stay loyal to
them.
Initially,
George resents their presence, fancying herself a lone wolf. However, she needs
their help investigating the strange happenings afoot on Kirrin Island. Apparently,
Thomas Wentworth, the creepy local blue blood, seeks a mythical Templar
treasure, but George intends to beat him to it. The trail will take them to London
and then back to Kirrin Island again. Of course, Timmy sticks with them every
step of the way.
In
the UK, The Famous Five aired in three feature-length installments, but
Hulu repackaged the first season into six episodes (three two-parters). Presumably,
they wanted to encourage impulse streaming, since the Famous Five are not as
famous in the U.S. The second two-fer, “Peril on the Night Train,” features
pre-WWII German agents as the villains, perhaps to appeal to Indiana Jones
fans.
Anne
Barnard thinks Kirrin Cottage is haunted, but the mystery figure is in fact a
spy out to steal Uncle (or father) Quentin’s newest invention. With war
looming, his Enigma Machine-like “Algebra Box” has huge national security
applications. Mr. Roland, an undercover British agent, will escort the Kirrin
family to a secret military facility in Scotland, even though the overnight
train is a perfect setting for the foreign operatives to strike again.
Much
to her own surprise, George is sorry her cousins must soon leave in “The Eye of
the Sunrise,” but she quickly meets a new friend. Unfortunately, she loses “The
Great Supremo” just as quickly. For their last hurrah, the Barnard cousins
agree to help rescue the circus hypnotist from the sinister mental hospital
holding him prisoner.
The
Famous Five is
clearly produced for younger viewers, but smarter kids should dig its
caperiness. The pre-War intrigue of “Night Train” and “Eye of the Sunrise” should
at least moderately engage mature adults as well. However, the bossy George and
goody-two-shoes Julian both get to be rather tiresome. Counterintuitively, the
two youngest cousins, Dick and Anne, hold up the best over the course of the
six (or three) episodes.
