Curse this fuzzy little movie, I swore to myself I wouldn’t fall for its manipulative charms. I didn’t know what form they would take, but after Paddington and The Boy, The Horse, The Fox, and the Mole exhibited a certain gentle polite English wisdom, I suspected Velveteen would pull the same trick. I was going to stand firm. I was… I was… going to… <sniff> Dammit!

The Velveteen Rabbit on Apple TV+ is an adaptation of a much loved book that I have never read. It’s about a boy who receives a stuffed rabbit for Christmas. He loves that rabbit and the rabbit loves him back. Many sparks of gentle wisdom are shared.

The film is live action and switches to stop motion animation when the toys come to life (spoiler alert: the toys come to life). There are also a couple hand-drawn animated segments that looked rotoscoped.

The gentle life lessons and wisdom nuggets are solid and, the longer the movie goes, the more dusty they make the room feel. Until, ahh dammit, the stupid movie moved me. I knew they were going to try… I was just resisting the attempt. But now I’m the sucker for digging my feet in and failing.

My only problem with the film is that its apparent more time is supposed to have passed in the film than it feels like. Maybe that’s a symptom of its 50 minute runtime or maybe it’s poor editing. Also the rabbit never looked as worn out and threadbare as they were suggesting making the passage of time unclear.

Yeah, it’s a good, heart-warming story that’ll probably generate a tear or two at the end. <shakes tiny fist>. I’m not even sure why I resisted… since resistance is futile.

Score: 86