The London of Paddington is a magical, multicultural melting pot, so there must be room in a city such as this for the title character, a well mannered young bear (winningly voiced by Skyfall’s Ben Whishaw) who keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat for emergencies, right?
Seeing the beloved storybook furball fumblingly find a new home far from his native land of ‘Darkest Peru’ is just one of the many, many charms of Paddington, which is definitely one of the most delightful family films of the year.
Following the adventures of Paddington and his adoptive human family (hurray for Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins as his new mum and dad) as they try to keep the bear from the clutches of a terrible taxidermist (a fun Nicole Kidman), the movie has a sweetly stylised look, a pleasingly smart and silly sense of humour and, best of all, a big, cuddly heart.
Writer-director Paul King puts it all together with a boisterous, cheerful spirit, one that neither talks down to younger viewers nor panders to older ones.
It simply presents a very likeable group of characters, pits them against a hissable villain and sets the whole shebang in an idealised London that feels both old-fashioned and modern. Watching Paddington, it’s hard to ask for anything more than that.
