“The Magic Faraway Tree” is presented as a wholesome, carefully modernised family film based on Enid Blyton’s fantasy books, following an urban family whose move to the countryside reconnects them with nature, magic and one another. Its strong UK box office performance, reportedly surpassing Pixar’s “Hoppers”, has already led to two sequels being approved, suggesting commercial potential for further Blyton adaptations despite the author’s increasingly controversial reputation.

The review says the film borrows heavily from recent adaptations of “The Secret Garden”, “The Chronicles of Narnia” and especially “Paddington”, sharing writer Simon Farnaby with the latter series. It praises the film’s gentle tone and lack of obnoxious family-film excess, but argues it is overly cautious, insufficiently imaginative and surprisingly short on genuine laughs. Blyton’s work has fallen out of favour in some schools and libraries because of racist and regressive gender portrayals, though television adaptations have continued.