Claire Mabey reviews the new adaptation of the famous Enid Blyton book.
The Magic Faraway Tree always gave me the creeps. Truth be told, I never really warmed to Silky and Moonface, or the Saucepan Man and the stressful angry pixie. I mostly dreaded the lands at the top of the tree because they started off promisingly but tended to end badly. And yet I’d always go back – for the slippery slip (a massive tree slide), pop biscuits (in my memory these were biscuits that exploded honey into your mouth when you bit down), and the hot baked potatoes with butter that the children’s mother always had waiting for when they finally returned from their near-death experiences.
I was pleased, then, to find the long-awaited movie adaptation maintained the essential spirit of the books: it’s an hour and 44 minutes of twee tropes, batshit characters, mortal danger and comforting foods.
The basic update on the story is a fantasy family escape from our tech-ridden world. Millennial parents (Claire Foy and Andrew Garfield), fed up with the trappings of contemporary life filled with screens and surveillance AI technology (Foy’s character invents a fridge that “knows you” and has the voice of Judi Dench), take their kids and run away to the countryside to fulfil a long-held dream of living off the land.
“Funny little child brain,” said Claire Foy over her wan daughter. “Please don’t hide it away.” Cue tears – so trite and yet it hit me. My own son told me recently that this year he’s only asking for one thing for Christmas: no more pollution. It took some rapid improvisation to explain that Santa really only deals in toys and that humans have to figure out that problem themselves, which backfired when my son returned with a design for an anti-pollution toy that surely Santa could make because, magic. This is the state of it in 2026: we are at the stage where we require fantasy adventures to help us navigate complex truths about the way our kids are being eaten alive by technology and deprived of a healthy planet (see also: the forthcoming fifth Toy Story film).
The Foy-Garfield children are of course fucking horrified when they turn up at a dilapidated barn that has no electricity or wifi. Intsead they find the call of nature and an invitation from Silky to come and have tea at the Faraway Tree.
The tree itself is done well: it’s majestic, spangled with Fern Gully-esque jewel tones and golden sparkles, and has an awesome slippery slip. The tree’s magical inhabitants are mostly fine, too. Nicola Coughlan’s Silky is sweet and friendly; Saucepan Man (Dustin Demri-Burns) is brassy and clangy; and the pixie (Hiran Abeysekera) is a high-pitched pain-in-the-ass. Nonso Anozie’s Mr Moonface, though, is more Moonhair (which, to be fair, must have been far easier to work with); and I found it hard to get past the fact that Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning was cast as Dame Washalot. When she lunged at the children, teeth bared, with a dire warning about Dame Snap (more on her later) I got chills. My favourite character was the mild-mannered Mr Watzisname, played with perfect comedic timing and tone by Oliver Chris. He carried a welcome hint of Monty Pythonesque absurdity that continued with a fruity scene involving Michael Palin and Lenny Henry as giant hirsute heads.
The revolving lands at the top of the tree were as unsettling as I remembered from the books. The land of goodies was, at first, a dreamscape of pick’n’mix (they could have tried harder on the lolly creation to be honest) before it turned into an unearned and sinister lesson about greed. The land of birthdays was entirely bizarre: a giant birthday cake inhabited by Europop pixies in shiny pastel tracksuits.
In fact, this whole very British film displayed an odd attitude towards Europeans. Jennifer Saunders plays Claire Foy’s mother as an uptight German; Andrew Garfield’s father character is determined to be Italian despite having no heritage (this was mentioned several times) – he miraculously starts speaking Italian as if that might happen if you make enough batches of pasta sauce and believe hard enough. I genuinely have no insights to bring to this other than it was fully weird.
The highlight of the movie was Rebecca Ferguson’s Dame Snap. In the books she’s Dame Slap and one of the scariest figures in all of children’s literature. In the film the physical violence may be muted but, my god, Ferguson is unhinged. Ferguson is such a committed actor that she makes some hammy lines and a weak school/jail situation both chilling and entertaining. She totters on heels sharp and long as knives and bears a strangely subtle snaggletooth with devastating conviction. She is a Blyton nightmare and the film is all the better for it.
My main criticism of the film is its overdose of twee. There’s a “family song” we could have done without, and lovely and desirable as it is, the whole city-folk-escape-to-the-country is cottage-core nostalgia hammed up to the max. Foy’s groundedness (and untampered-with face – bless her and Ferguson for showing us natural skin), Garfield’s charm, and restrained performances by the children only just save the movie from tipping into spew-in-mouth levels of saccharine.
Ultimately, though, it’s a timely story about rescuing “funny little child brains”, and their parents, from tech-induced disconnection before it’s too late. And look, between watching Louis Theroux’s Manosphere doco and reading the latest news about the mind-fuckery of AI and Meta, running for the hills to grow your own tomatoes and recover some nature-based magic sounds like a damn fine idea to me.
The Magic Faraway Tree movie is currently playing in cinemas nationwide.
