On paper, this should come easy to screenwriter Simon Farnaby, with the Paddington movies and Wonka behind him, and Enid Blyton’s beloved The Magic Faraway Tree book series the source. But magic is hardly as easy as a fruit picked off a tree.It is either there, or it is not. And the more this film juggles its many British thespians, two known faces in Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, and a very modern message about a childhood lost to electronic devices, the less and less it seems magical.Polly (Foy) is a product designer and Tim (Garfield) a house husband raising their three children Fran (Billie Gadsdon), Joe (Phoenix Laroche) and the teenager Beth (Delilah Bennett-Cardy), while nourishing dreams of making a bestseller pasta sauce. To that end, Tim keeps trying out Italian phrases in a habit that is maybe funny at first, but eventually just annoying.Polly quits her job one day after realising that the company for whom she has designed a talking fridge (in the voice of Judi Dench, no less) actually has a camera installed to spy on its customers. That is as bad as it gets in the un-fairy world, and so Tim decides that now “poor”, they should shift to the countryside where he once lived as a child, and loved it.Polly and Tim have a “dream binder”, a folder containing all their dreams and wishes over the years since they were art students. And it is one of the most original ideas in The Magic Faraway Tree.The children are devastated, and you honestly can’t blame them as the house Tim moves them into is little more than a barn, with a broken-down tractor parked inside, cobwebs all over, no electricity and, heavens, no wi-fi. There is a very silly joke about the farmer who has given them the house (Barnaby stepping in himself) confusing wi-fi for something – rather, someone – closer home and more wired in.But voila, Polly and Tim have nary a fight, and the loving couple set about gamely making a home. Meanwhile, Fran discovers what we are all here for: the enchanted woods, and its magic tree.Story continues below this adA series of known actors stream in after this, playing different characters inhabiting the tree and “lands” beyond – in bursts of incandescent colours. There is a whirlwind of those lands as well – Land of Goodies and Land of Birthdays among them. Even director Ben Gregor loses interest in fleshing them out after the first few.Billie Gadsdon is underwhelming as Fran, the youngest child with the greatest power of feeling the magic, and Garfield just tries too hard to be a cute hapless man-child. Foy is a joy, especially when she is around the family.Delilah Bennett-Cardy’s Beth is an efficiently catty teenager, and Coughlan (Bridgerton) as a fairy gets your defences down.Also Read – Onslaught movie review: Adria Arjona’s slasher thirller is all guns, little fireStory continues below this adFor a tale invoking fairies and pixies, though, the most winsome are the quintessential bad people – Ferguson as ‘Dame Snap’ with an impossibly tilted hairdo; and Saunders as Polly’s wealthy and snobbish mother.Saunders’s horror at having to utter the word “unemployed” to friends in reference to Polly is enough to shake your belief that there could follow a happy ever after.The Magic Faraway Tree movie director: Ben GregorThe Magic Faraway Tree movie cast: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Nonso Anozie, Phoenix Laroche, Billie Gadsdon, Delilah Bennett-Cardy, Nicola Coughlan, Jessica Gunning, Dustin Demri-Burns, Simon Farnaby, Jennifer Saunders, Rebecca FergusonThe Magic Faraway Tree movie rating: 2 stars