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 Due for release later this year, the live-action feature film
based on the marmalade-loving bear from darkest Peru, has been a
long time coming.
Created by author Michael Bond in the 1950s, some 30 million
books following the bear's various adventures have been sold
worldwide. Turned into a popular television series, Paddington,
with his distinctive Wellington boots, old hat and duffle coat,
was portrayed by a stop-motion puppet. A 1976 movie was made
with conventional animation.
The new film, though, bristles with the latest technology,
including a computer-generated Paddington who, for the cast that
also includes Sally Hawkins ("Blue Jasmine"), Hugh Bonneville ("Downton
Abbey") and Julie Walters ("Harry Potter"), was represented
during filming by a stick.
"We had the good fortune of spending a few weeks in rehearsal
together ... so we were able to get used to the 'spirit of the
bear'," Bonneville said at a press screening of excerpts from
the movie, which will be released in Britain on November 28 and
in the United States on Christmas Day.
With the starry cast, and with French producer StudioCanal
backing the film directed by the young British director Paul
King ("The Mighty Boosh"), there are high hopes this could be
the start of another worldwide conquest for the bear that has
been a favorite of British children for decades, but might not
be as well known in the United States as Winnie-the-Pooh.
OUTSIDER
"I loved the script, I thought it was really funny and quirky,"
Hawkins said at a press briefing where - what else? - marmalade
sandwiches were served.
"I loved the idea that he's an outsider needing to be brought
in," she said of Paddington's forlorn appearance at Paddington
Station in London.
Fresh off the boat from Peru, but totally lost and starving, he
is adopted by the Brown family, played by Hawkins, Bonneville
and the child actors Samuel Joslin and Madeleine Harris.
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"There's something wonderful about that and it's very inclusive, the
film, the way that it's about understanding somebody who is
different," Hawkins said.
The plot - as much as was revealed in a few excerpts - involves
Paddington being ever-so polite and decorous, to the extent he is
able to be as a bear who eats with his paws and tends to fall into
his food.
He also has a penchant for misunderstanding simple situations, which
leads to a chase through the streets of London in which he is trying
to return a wallet - to a pickpocket.
The heavy-duty villainry, however, comes in the form of Kidman as an
unethical employee of the Natural History Museum who has Paddington
in her sights - "so you know where the plot is heading", Bonneville
said.
"The jeopardy ramps up throughout the story," he added. "She is very
icy. She is loveable, really, even though she's evil."
Apart from the CGI bear, the film has a lush, 1950s
Technicolor-style look to it, which if it makes viewers think of
Christmas, curled up by the fire with a good book - preferably
Paddington - that would be exactly what's intended.
"I think it's a universal story, I think we've all felt like
Paddington does, alone, without friends or family," Hawkins said.
"He's a refugee and he's taken into this home, so I think we can all
relate to that.
"It's all about love, really."
(Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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