In Vertical’s upcoming The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton’s 1940s children’s novels get a modern makeover, and one that director Ben Gregor, as well as stars Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, say brings the author’s messages around adventure and family to a modern audience.
“Simon [Farnaby] made it really relevant. He made it about kids of today, but with all the values and excitement of the adventures of Enid Blyton. He brought the two worlds together in this amazing, tender, warm, funny way,” Gregor told The Hollywood Reporter while discussing the work of the film’s screenwriter at the New York premiere on Wednesday night. “It’s not a preachy thing, but it does say go outside and climb a tree and have some fun. Get off the screens. And Simon, he’s a master of warmth. It’s like having a big hug watching this movie.”
The second story in the Faraway trilogy, the film and book follow three siblings who move to the English countryside and discover a magical tree and its fantastical inhabitants. All are able to visit various lands in the sky, including one known as the Land of Goodies. “It’s kind of like a candy land,” Gregor explained about what audiences will see adapted for the film. “We made an edible set. The kids came and just ate it. I really wanted them to do this in the old school way of making films where things are really there and things they can see, feel and touch. That’s how we made this.”
Garfield and Foy portray Tim and Polly, the parents of Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), Joe (Phoenix Laroche) and Fran (Billie Gadsdon), who, in this modern iteration written by the Paddington 2 scribe, move their family out of the city. That’s after Polly loses the company-owned flat after quitting her job as an electronic engineer, unwilling to continue working on a smart fridge that gathers data on its owners.
“I think it needs to be reinvented, these stories — sometimes because they exist in a world that we no longer live in,” Foy said of the film’s changes from the book. “To bring them up to date and to allow a larger audience in is really important, and that’s what Simon Barnaby did.”
“What Simon has done is he’s made it incredibly modern and rightly so. To make a film about this, what it’s like to be a kid now and what it’s like to be a parent now, it feels really important,” Garfield told THR. “I think we’re all craving some kind of reconnection to ourselves, some kind of reconnection to nature.”
The movie reunites Foy and Garfield onscreen nearly a decade after their leading turns in 2017’s Breathe. “We must have worked together 10 years ago. It was very different times of our lives,” recalled Foy at Wednesday’s event. “It’s amazing to be in this industry and continue to work with people that you’ve worked with before. One, it’s lovely. It’s seeing an old friend again, but also it’s nice that you get to build those relationships. This was a completely different project, completely different approach. It’s a kids’ film. We were just along for the ride really, and that felt so amazing.”
The Magic Faraway Tree also serves as Garfield’s first foray into the family film space. “Reuniting with Claire is always a joy to me, whether it’s as friends or as collaborators. She’s such a great actor, and she’s such a playful, fun person to work with. Just a great hang,” Garfield said. “And these kids, it was so easy to create a dynamic with them because they’re not only brilliant actors, they’re just brilliant human beings. They’re such sweet, kind, funny, thoughtful, sensitive, beautiful people. And we just kind of hung out. It just happened very, very naturally.”
“There’s a hunger for adventure and the nostalgia of a big family film and the sense of escapism,” said Gregor. “Andrew, he really gravitated to it, and he felt like it’s a story he really wanted to tell.”
Foy and Garfield are joined onscreen by not only their young co-stars but also a notable adult cast, including Nicola Coughlan, Nonso Anozie, Dustin Demri-Burns, Jessica Gunning, Oliver Chris, Michael Palin and Dame Judie Dench. It was an ensemble, the film’s director said, that Garfield’s presence helped amass.
“Everyone started following — more and more people, legends like Michael Palin and Judi Dench, who plays a fridge,” Gregor told THR, explaining how the film snagged several actors after Garfield signed on. “Once you got Judi Dench as a fridge, you’re off. People just gravitated to the story and Simon Farnaby’s writing. They wanted to be part of something that Simon had written.”
“Simon is such a great writer. He’s so full of heart and very, very genuinely funny,” Garfield added. “Table reads are usually really bad; our table read was one of the best table reads I’ve ever had. Everyone was crying. Everyone was laughing. It was so joyful.”
The Magic Faraway Tree hits theaters Aug. 21.