Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am a Pooh fanatic, so when I saw the previews for Piglet’s Big Movie,
I couldn’t wait to go. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the theater
in time, but I snatched up a copy when I spotted it on sale last week.
I’d heard reviews proclaiming it the best Pooh movie ever, and the fact
that Carly Simon was doing the soundtrack seemed promising as well. But
when I actually played it, I found myself rather disappointed.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a Winnie-the-Pooh movie; you can’t go too far
astray. It's cute, it's warm and fuzzy, there's a happy ending. The
film’s premise seems simple enough, and one that has been visited many
times in various Pooh chronicles: Piglet doesn’t feel big enough / brave
enough to do whatever it is that he has to do. Eventually, by the end
of the adventure, he will feel big enough / brave enough. But that’s not
quite the problem here. Throughout pretty much the whole movie, Piglet
does feel big enough and brave enough, but his friends don’t seem to see
him that way. And while they set off to rescue Piglet after a
honey-collecting escapade gone bad, Piglet sets off to rescue them.
All this results in some very muddled characterizations. These timeworn
characters just don’t seem to be acting themselves, particularly
towards the beginning of the movie. Piglet wants to do great things, and
he does – for instance, in the opening scene, he temporarily averts
disaster by trapping a swarm of irate bees in a papier-mache hive. When
no one recognizes him for his contribution, he begins to protest, then
simply looks sullen. He does this often in the movie.
But
Piglet isn’t really the problem. It’s the others, particularly Pooh, who
has always been Piglet’s best friend. When Piglet arrives on the scene,
all Pooh can say is “Don’t get in the way of our big plan, Piglet.”
After Piglet saves the day, he tells Piglet he is sorry that he could
not help with their big plan. The others similarly give Piglet the
brush-off. As they congratulate one another on a job well done, they
remind me very much of the song in My Fair Lady in which Mr.
Higgins and Colonel Pickering crow over their achievement in reforming
Eliza Doolittle while she stands by feeling very unappreciated.
The bulk of the film is flashbacks: of the time Kanga and Roo moved to
the forest, of the time the House at Pooh Corner was built, of the time
the North Pole was discovered. These are fairly true to Milne’s text,
with a few alterations. Chiefly, a number of Heroic Deeds By Piglet are
added, although after the flashback to the North Pole Expotition
concludes, all Pooh can think to say is “Hooray for Pooh.” Additionally,
these flashbacks are quite lengthy, and it’s easy to forget this is
taking place in the past and wonder why Piglet is back in the picture.
A couple other little quibbles. Rabbit keeps saying that if it weren’t
for Piglet, he and Roo wouldn’t be such good friends. Since when are
Rabbit and Roo so close? Roo’s always spent most of his time with
Tigger! At one point, one of Piglet’s scrapbook drawings gets smudged
with water. Others become smudged as well. But later, they are fishing
pages out of the stream and they are perfectly intact. Finally, after
being gone for the whole movie, Piglet miraculously appears out of
nowhere at just the right time. Well, I guess this is fairly typical,
but I’m just being ornery!
After this litany of complaints, I
really should say that I’m probably overstating my case. Maybe they’re
trying to be truer to the books; I’ve been spoiled by the pure altruism
of the Disney Pooh. Milne’s Pooh was a bit more self-serving. The music
is good, the animation is good, and there are several moments in the
movie that are particularly touching or funny. One scene that struck my
funny bone was when Tigger and Pooh were trying to distract Kanga, and
they started up this banter about some type of marine animal being up in
a nearby tree. Moments later, as Tigger explains to Pooh that you would
recognize a jellyfish because it would say “I’m a jellyfish!”, we get a
shot of a fish sitting happily on a tree branch.
The gang of
course comes to the right conclusion in the end. Piglet is a Very Small
Animal who does many Very Big Things. It just seems to me that this is
something they all had figured out a long time ago. They always
appreciated Piglet before; if he got left out of things, it was because
he insisted upon it. Why change the characters for the worse only to
allow them to have a revelation they don’t need? We always knew Piglet
was a Very Important Pig with Very Good Friends. It shouldn’t take a
whole movie to get him there.
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