Studiocanal placed a modern spotlight on beloved movie series Paddington with their debut film, “Paddington In Peru,” in theaters on February 14, 2025. Now directed by Dougal Wilson, the Browns’ ordinary lives abruptly halt as Paddington receives a letter from his aunt in Peru. Reverend Mother, played by Olivia Colman, writes to Paddington about how much his Aunt Lucy misses him, which leads the family to leave Windsor Gardens to Lima.
Paddington in Peru will be shown at Starlight Cinema in Cypress, Regal Edwards in Long Beach, and Regal Edwards in Cerritos all for a limited time. The movie will eventually be streamed on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video as a PG rated film. The film is one hour and 46 minutes long, which makes it the longest screen time out of the trilogy.
In this new cast, original Paddington actors, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin play the Brown family. This time, Mrs. Brown is played by actor Emily Mortimer. Rolling Stone found the acting, “A little less twee, a little less idiosyncratic than its predecessors, but it retains the sunniness.” The soundtrack for the movie was mostly composed by Dario Marianelli.
After Paddington 2, the newly updated family montages through their lives. Jonathan and Judy, now grown up as young adults, deal with relatable problems of early adulthood. In the middle of this, Mr. Brown’s complications with his boss encourage the family to instead leave and go with Paddington’s adventure. Once at the House of Retired Bears, Paddington realizes that Lucy is gone. This realization further fuels their venture, having a clue that she had gone to El Dorado, a myth about a supposed city of gold.
Although the film’s direction of adventure appears linear, its ability to showcase Paddington’s journey of identity deepens the meaning of the film. Senior Soraya Castro Meza, said, “It’s great to see my country be represented,” in response to the film taking place in Peru. In addition, the overarching theme of home helps to encourage the embracing of cultural identity within the modern times. Meza said, “The way of connecting with us, at least here in America, there’s a lot of immigrants, my parents are immigrants and I was born here, so I think it’s nice to connect to your culture.” Whether it be Paddington, Aunt Lucy or Mrs. Brown, people will always have their own El Dorado.
Overall, the latest film in the trilogy helped to capture what made the original films classics. Paddington in Peru’s themes modernizes the importance of family and heritage in a time when people regularly struggle to find who they are.
