On a somewhat rainy Saturday afternoon, Brodie and I finally went to see the film I’ve been talking about on here for ages.

First, we argued about where to sit. I wanted one of the pairs of seats that run down the side, then nobody could sit beside us, or ask us to stand up so they could get in or out. Brodie insisted we sit right at the back, at the top of the stairs, so that nobody could sit in front of him. Annoyingly, he won, and I booked the awful top of the stairs seats. The seats I wanted to pick stayed empty, as were the ones in front…

But anyway. We went, and he was very excited as this was the first time the two of us had gone alone together. We’d already picked up some bottles of juice and some popcorn, so I said he could have some pick and mix. I put some in a bag for myself and clearly failed to supervise him well enough because the total was £11.10 – at least 2/3s of which was down to him.

So what did I think?

I’ll start with the easy bit first – I actually liked the film. Which is weird, as I hate the recent Famous Five adaptation with a passion, and it’s probably got at least some similarities to that. Perhaps if I’d been an avid reader of the Faraway Tree books I’d feel differently.

It is not a straight adaptation of the book(s). While what we all dream of is a 100% accurate recreation of the book, it’s just never going to happen. Even the best film adaptations of books (LOTR, The Wizard of Oz, etc) make big changes, and often for the better. Sometimes something professing to be a faithful adaptation is even more disappointing than something which knows it’s only loosely based on the source material.

What’s it about?

Some parts may be vague, because I failed to write anything down after I saw it and it’s already getting hazy.

Mum (Claire Foy) has lost her job because she has discovered that the intelligent fridge she designed has a camera in it that’s tracking everyone’s eating habits. (How she could not know this as she’s the designer I do not know.)

Dad (Andrew Garfield) says great, let’s go live in the country. He is determined he’s going to make a living from making an Italian pasta sauce out of home grown tomatoes, despite them not being in Italy. Or being Italian? Though he perhaps thinks he is? I didn’t really get that bit.

This pasta-sauce plan forms the background of the story. When they visit The Land of Birthdays they all made bad wishes (which most of them undo after doing battle with Mr Oom-Boom-Boom. Beth wishes the tomato farm will fail so they can go home.

Only when it does fail, she regrets it massively as she’s started to enjoy their new life. And so that’s the reason they go off on another adventure – via the five-headed wise man, a yellow plane, Dame Snap’s school, and finally a magical market to get a spell to revive the tomato crop.

What worked well?

The acting was great – even the kids. Beth in particular perfected the teenage distaste for everything without becoming unlikable. (In fact I related a lot to Beth. I’d have been furious to go on a holiday and discover no electricity and no wifi let alone to a permanent residence.)

The scene where Granny arrives because Beth has written to her was so well done. You could see that Beth regretted it and was coming around to living there, and her parents were disappointed, but nobody attacked her. Instead they formed a united front against Granny.

Nicola Coughlan was great as silky – whimsical and mischievous with a lot of heart. Saucepan Man added little moments of comedy throughout as he misheard people.

I was surprised at the way Moonface was played at first – mistrustful of humans and unwelcoming to the children – but it was part of a deeper story that made sense as the movie went on and was actually quite touching.

I loved Dame Snap’s reference to previously being called Dame Slap, but having to change it because of a school inspector. That’s obviously a nod to all the old-school fans who lamented the change.

What didn’t work so well?

I thought the opening few minutes were a bit weak as they tried to make a believable reason why a family would suddenly move to a ramshackle barn. It may have been better to skip that part and say nothing more than Mum lost her job. I know they were trying to establish Mum’s abilities as a designer/inventor, Dad’s dreams from the dream book and so on, but it seemed a bit disjointed and not very believable.

I could have lived without the cheesy family song and the music/dancing when the lands arrive, but those are more personal preferences than criticism.

Other than that I wouldn’t say there was anything bad about the film.

Was it Blyton?

I think it was very Blyton. It was a new story, set at a different time but it still retained some of what I’d expect in a Blyton book.

The lands were strange and whimsical, the characters were funny – or nasty like Mr Oom-Boom-Boom who was her usual kind of pantomime fantasy villain.

There were lots of lovely moments that I thought embodied Blyton’s way of weaving morals into the stories. She always focussed on honesty, kindness, fairness, friendship and so on.

The first of these ‘moment’s is when Franny – having been warned not to be greedy – tries to stay in the Land of Goodies too long so she can get a marshmallow when she’s already got a full basket of treats. This means the others have to come to her rescue and they escape without any goodies at all.

Later, Beth is relieved when Dad says they have power and wifi and immediately gets on her tablet to chat to her friends. The conversation is not the delight she had imagined as her friends laugh at the flower in her hair, which she got while up the Faraway Tree. She’s then upset when the power goes out, but she finds her father cycling on a stationary bike to produce the electricity. She doesn’t say anything but she slips away, looking ashamed of herself. At the end when her friends come to the grand pasta sauce opening gala, they embrace her new life.

I’ve not explained it all very well, but there was a lot of subtle stuff in there about people not always being who you thought they were and Beth clearly does a lot of reflection even if it isn’t verbalised.

Also good was Silky wishing herself to be ‘the fairiest fairy’ with sparkles and wings because Beth had criticised her for not looking like a fairy. She undoes her wish and later Beth is very glad as she comes to realise that Silky’s perfect the way she is.

Of course there is a happy ending – the children risked themselves and their friends in various dangerous ways, and everything turns out well. I got a bit teary at the end, in fact.

What did Brodie think?

He gave it two thumbs up but said it wasn’t as good as Project Hail Mary. His favourite part was when they were trapped in Dame Snap’s school and they all had to annoy her enough to send them to detention. If I say that the warning at the beginning mentioned ‘rude humour’ you can probably guess why he liked that so much.

The rest of the audience seemed to appreciate it too, the children were all entranced enough to be sitting quietly at any rate.

Over all it seems to have done quite well, making £2.8m on its opening weekend, and doing well enough that is has secured a US release on August 21st. It’ll be interesting to see how well it does (or doesn’t do) in the US where Blyton never became the same household name as she did in other parts of the world.

On a final note – the slippery-slip looks TERRIFYING and I cant believe anyone went down it.

Has anyone else seen it? If so, what did you think?