Garfields New Film: A Magical Escape from Our Screens

Andrew Garfield wants audiences to look up from their phones and remember that there is still plenty of magic in the world around them.

The film, based on Enid Blyton’s children’s books, arrives in U.S. theaters on Friday.

For Garfield, the story’s themes of nature, imagination and community feel especially timely as technology increasingly shapes everyday life. “I think people are craving connection and community and a kind of reconnection to the earth and to each other,” he said.

Garfield became passionate about the project after reading Simon Farna “I really just adore his sense of whimsy and heartfeltness and magic and joy,” he said. “I felt very, very passionate about it.”

Tim’s journey reflects the film’s larger ideas about finding wonder outside the routine and distractions of modern life.

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Garfield says he is drawn to roles with an element of play, community and the natural world. He focuses on “anything that keeps me awake to the remembering of the connection that we have to each other, the connection we have to nature, how we are all interconnected,” he said.

Garfield grew up reading Enid Blyton’s “The Famous Five” with his brother but did not read “The Faraway Tree” series as a child. His mother introduced him to another beloved literary adventurer: Bilbo Baggins, the hero of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”

“Any underdog story, really, those are the ones that get me,” Garfield said.

Garfield remembers being fascinated

He welcomes the resurgence of VHS and other analog technology among younger audiences. “I dig that,” he said. “The regression to analog is looking good to me.”