Nicecore family-friendly filmmaking returns with Paddington in Peru, in which the lovable and sincere bear returns to his roots. After Paddington 2 (2017) raised the bar, imbued with the playful spirit of great silent comedies and an aesthetic awareness akin to Wes Anderson, the third movie reverts back to more modest aspirations. If the first two movies were about Paddington leaving home and finding family, the third movie is about Paddington coming home and finding family.
The bear’s homecoming story is more direct and still wears its heart on its sleeve. Paddington arrives in Peru with his found family of humans to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who has been moved into the Home for Retired Bears. However, once they arrived, Lucy is missing, so the family charters a boat with a mysterious captain and his daughter, setting off into the Peruvian Amazon to find the lost elder bear.
The mechanics of the film are more straightforward now. It’s a basic adventure story. It does what it says. Paddington returns home. And there are a few laughs and heartfelt moments of sweetness folded into its nostalgic return story, but not much you can take with you.
Sweetness is still the point. This time, there has been a change in the director chair. Paul King has been replaced by Dougal Wilson, who makes his feature film debut, having primarily made heartfelt advertising work up till this point. That’s how Paddington in Peru now comes across: as heartfelt and commercial. Likewise, screenwriter Simon Farnaby, who afforded the first two movies such tremendous heart, moved forward with Paul King to work on Wonka (2023). Mark Burton, Jon Foster, and James Lamont step in to adapt the story and mostly bring it back down to earth, Paddington in Peru is more common and what would happen most of the time, if the first two movies were not exceptional.
The film does deliver our first good ensemble of the year, starring Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Carla Tous, Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas and Ben Whishaw as Paddington. The cast is reason enough to turn up. Banderas is having good fun as the roguish charter boat captain with an ancestry of ghosts who will him toward a lust for treasure over family. The film offers a corrective, of course, as family is the true treasure, and it should be no real surprise that’s how it goes.
Paddington in Peru keeps it simple. It’s a small delight this time round and not an outsized achievement in empathy. We still do need the kindness of family films. Maybe right now you need to watch a bear in a cute hat and jacket journey homeward and enjoy some marmalade sandwiches. Maybe you even deserve a marmalade sandwich yourself. In all the madness of the world right now, the absolute least we can do is offer a salve to our children. For that, Paddington in Peru is necessary, and a sweet time at the movies.