ReviewGoodbye Christopher Robin film review: Winnie the Pooh origin story doubles as a bleak account of PTSD and parental neglect

True-to-life depiction of shell-shocked children’s author and his mean-spirited wife, and the son they neglected, then exploited for publicity, is emotionally brutal, and suffers from the glossy, period-piece treatment it has been given

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Margot Robbie (left), Domhnall Gleeson and Will Tilston in a still from Goodbye Christopher Robin (category: IIA), directed by Simon Curtis). Photo: David Appleby/ 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Published: 7:04pm, 12 Mar 2018Updated: 7:04pm, 12 Mar 2018

3/5 stars

Those expecting a charming story about the creation of children’s literature icon Winnie the Pooh beware: this gloom-laden movie is fuelled by post-traumatic stress disorder, and parental neglect which would today be classified as child abuse.

The film sticks close to the facts of the story behind Winnie the Pooh. A.A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson), a playwright, returned from the horrors of the first world war with shell shock, a condition that would now be diagnosed as PTSD, and had a son, Christopher Robin (Will Tilston), with his mean-spirited wife, Daphne (Margot Robbie).

Kelly Macdonald and Will Tilston in a still from Goodbye Christopher Robin. Photo: David Appleby/2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

The couple were expecting a girl, and had no interest in the boy, who was left to the care of a kindly nanny, Olive (Kelly Macdonald). When Olive married, Milne spent time with Christopher in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, southern England, where he dreamed up the idea of the cuddly bear Winnie the Pooh.