The Magic Faraway Tree review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 08.24.26
★★½ 2.5 / 5
Spoiler-free review
Gorgeously mounted and clearly devoted to Enid Blyton’s world, The Magic Faraway Tree plays like a faithful, family-first adaptation that longtime fans and kids may fall for more easily than I did. Despite handsome craft and solid adult turns—Andrew Garfield remains my guy, and Claire Foy is reliably sharp—the film’s gentle pacing and extended runtime left me drowsy rather than transported. The child performances are fine but not magnetic, and the storytelling never quite pulls me in. I’m not the target audience, but if your household loves the book, this looks great and should land for them.
Full review — contains spoilers
I don’t know anything at all about this book or franchise of books. So I can only evaluate it as a movie in isolation. My feeling watching this was that the book must be really fun for kids, and that the movie probably follows enough of it pretty closely that people who already love the story are going to get more out of this than I did.
For me, it was just kind of dry and very long.
I couldn’t really spend two hours doing this. I nodded off for a few minutes here and there, and honestly I didn’t mind the nap. There just wasn’t enough going on to keep me completely engaged for the amount of time they wanted me to spend with it.
And I’m sorry because I love Andrew Garfield. That’s my boy. The one true Spider-Man. Claire Foy does a good job here too. All of the adult actors are decent here. I didn’t think the child performances were quite as strong, but none of them stand out as the problem here.
For me it was more that the whole thing felt unfamiliar and a little slow to me. I never really got pulled into it.
I think I’m very much not the audience for this, but it’s beautiful and well executed. If you’re a kid, or have kids, and especially if they’ve read The Magic Faraway Tree and love the book, then by all means go see it.