Hollywood or History?: Paddington (2014)

Paddington (2014) is an adaptation of Michael Bond’s famous stories about a beloved bear who is left at a London train station with a tag reading, “Please look after this bear.” Bond, who grew up in Great Britain in the 1930s, was moved by seeing many German children arrive unaccompanied to London—wearing similar identification tags—in an effort to keep them safe near the beginning of World War II. Tolin’s (2020) biography of Michael Bond details how he created Paddington in an effort to help build empathy for other children who were forced to seek refuge in unfamiliar places due to conflicts in their home countries. The first book was wildly popular, sparking dozens of sequels about Paddington’s adventures in the human world. Bond is said to have loved the Paddington movie, which came out just a few years prior to his death at the age of 91. The sequel, Paddington 2 (2017), has one of the highest-ever ratings from the movie rating website www.rottentomatoes.com.