Walt Disney Records release the original soundtrack to Christopher Robin. The score features music by Emmy® Award-winning Geoff Zanelli and Grammy®-nominated composer Jon Brion. In Disney’s heartwarming live-action adventure, the young boy who shared countless adventures with his stuffed animal friends in the Hundred Acre Wood is now grown up, living in midcentury London and dealing with the stresses of adulthood. Now it is up to his childhood friends to venture into our world and help Christopher Robin rediscover the joys of family life, the value of friendship and to appreciate the simple pleasure in life once again...

The score to Christopher Robin wasn't quite what I was expecting. Sure it's a sweet selection of tracks, but I can't help feeling that the composers missed an opportunity to really tug at the old heartstrings. The music just ambles along, without any real memorable or emotionally interesting themes.

This was surprising, not only considering the movie's subject, but given that Jon Brion, who composed the wonderful score for Lady Bird, was involved.

Disney legend Richard M. Sherman wrote both the music and lyrics for the three new songs which appear in the film. The song 'Goodbye, Farewell', which is performed by Winnie the Pooh and friends from the Hundred Acre Wood, can be heard in the opening scene. 'Busy Doing Nothing' and 'Christopher Robin' are both performed by Richard Sherman himself and appear in the end credits.

Over the course of this album's 25 tracks (56 min, 36 sec) I was reminded of Hans Zimmer's work on Gladiator ('Did You Let Me Go') and Danny Elfman's music for Beetlejuice ('Heffalump Battle'). While it's not a bad score, by any stretch of the imagination, I was hoping that it would have been so much more melancholic. The ending of 'I Do Nothing Every Day' was a step in the right direction, but was really too little too late.

Overall, a rather bland soundtrack which only highlights were the wonderfully "Pooh-like" Richard M. Sherman songs.

6

Darren Rea