Paddington

I took my younger two kids to see Paddington yesterday and my 11 year old daughter said “predictable” and my 5 year old said “scary” (you’ll have to see the movie to find out why he said scary!). To the annoyance of my daughter, I said “So sweet. The best children’s movie”. Although this is a children’s movie, it is very much a movie for the adults who grew up with Paddington as children. I absolutely loved it and wanted to see it again straight away. I suspect this might be the case for other adults too who had the Paddington Bear soft toys and illustrated books.

It’s such a wonderful story, a very British story and really makes you want to live in London in one of those beautiful tall terraced houses even though in reality you would never be able to afford to live in a one bedroom flat in London let alone a house! Nevertheless, for 95 minutes London is presented in all its Britishness – the type of Britishness I thought of as being British when I was a child growing up in America. And I suppose Paddington Bear was part of that. He has become a British icon and can be found all over the world in his red had, blue duffle coat and waving the British flag. I won’t spoil the movie (although my daughter is right in that it is predictable so not much to spoil but it’s the experience that is so lovely), go and see it. It’s truly wonderful and a great movie to see with the kids to get into the Christmas spirit.

www.paddington.com/gb/the-movie/

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Meghan Peterson Fenn is the author of Bringing Up Brits and co-author of Inspiring Global Entrepreneurs with Heidi Mulligan Walker. Meghan is also the Director and Chief Designer at her own design company, White Ochre Design Ltd. And, she is an award winning expat blogger.