My little niece and nephew wanted to watch this practically every day over Christmas, and I have watched it of my own accord since then. It's got beautiful animation (looks like stop motion but is actually CGI I think) and a lovely classical-style score. The voice acting is also very good. I particularly like Russell Tovey as the dog, and Martin Freeman as Stick Man does an excellent job of selling lines I thought were inane when I first read the book.
It's very faithful to the book, with an animation style that's a close match for Axel Scheffler's pictures, and it includes all of Julia Donaldson's words with very few extras and minimal changes, mainly pronoun changes to allow lines to be spoken by characters instead of the narrator. This means the extra scenes, such as the prologue showing the stick family having fun at Christmas, unfold mainly without dialogue, which can be slightly jarring. It also means there are sometimes long gaps between pairs of rhyming lines, which makes the rhymes sound odd and unnecessary. These stylistic choices are the same as in all the other Julia Donaldson TV adaptations since The Gruffalo, and they're things you can get used to if you're prepared to let your busy grown-up mind slow down for a while.
The story gets quite dark and worrisome at times. While Stick Man initially takes his tribulations with good humour - for example, helping the girl who threw him in the river by swimming ahead of the other Pooh-sticks - later on he's in real peril and clearly at the end of his endurance. Small children might miss the indications of the changing seasons that show just how long his journey takes, but older viewers won't. Also, to me, the idea of being swept out to sea, unable to control where the current takes you, is pretty scary. So is the thought of a partner or parent going out one morning and never coming home. Kudos to the filmmakers for taking the little twig guy's problems seriously while maintaining a light touch so that children aren't overwhelmed.
It's the thoughtful details that keep me interested. The watchful cat that provides a bridge between two scenes in a montage. The charcoal drawing of the stick family, which fades into a shot of Stick Man lying in a grate, flanked by ordinary sticks. Stick Man recognising the boy who used him as a bat, and picking out a real cricket bat from Santa's sack. The look on his face when he realises the last three presents in the sack are wrapped in leaves. I have never been bored while watching Stick Man, and if my niece and nephew want to watch it again next time I visit, that's fine by me.
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