Finding Neverland Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)November 25th, 2004
Finding Neverland
Matinee with Snacks
Full disclosure: What I knew about J.M.Barrie walking into this movie could fill a thimble. I am not here to speak to the biographical accuracy of this film or the work on which it's based, Allan Knee's play The Man Who Was Peter Pan. As my companion sagely noted, this story is not about J.M. Barrie. It's about believing in magic, and what it really means to grow up. Not just believing in fairy magic, but the magic of a connection with another person, the magic of play and imagination and intellectual freedom and being true to one's inner voice and heart, and truth with each other. It's also about the magic of theatre. Even showing all the rigging and mechanical tricks and exaggerated paint, here theatre comes alive, showing in this film its unique capacity to touch a live audience like it rarely can on screen.
Lately there have been a few films about the theatre - Being Julia and Stage Beauty most recently. It's not as if the theatre is dying without a camera trained on it, but what the camera continues to show us is that theatre has its own life force behind it. To record it on film is only to photograph a loved one who has passed away; a reminder of a portion of its real magic. Finding Neverland takes the movie-going audience one step further, and really makes us feel that we are at the playhouse in 1924, watching Peter Pan for the first time.
Finding Neverland is really about finding Neverland; a place where children go when their earthly selves have grown up; a safe place free of lies and the grown-up propriety that takes something pure and twists it on a hook. It's also about how a friendship with a family of boys and their widowed mother helped inspire a beloved piece of literature that still inspires resuscitation today. It's about how inspiration for imagination is all around us, if we only will open our eyes and hearts. It sounds mushy, and maybe it is (we both cried) but by gum, it's a fantastic journey. There is still a part of nearly all of us who wants to remain young and carefree forever, and if that part is alive in you, this film will touch it. Barrie could find a way to keep himself alive, his soul I mean, by playing at his dreams, writing them down for others to share, and embracing the absurd and inappropriate. In buttoned down England in the 1920s, this was no mean feat. (It helps that he was a Scot as well.) I was reminded that Depp is slated to play the fabled man-child Willy Wonka after this, and this is the best audition for anyone left who might be horrified at the notion of a remake of that film.
Depp, always an actor who brings so much to any role, is delightful. Not just "fall in love with" delightful, but a man you would trust to play with your children, to mold them into adults of character and still to promote whimsy and belief in the magic in us all as a sign of living. He and Kate Winslet have terrific chemistry together.
It's not sexual; regardless of what may or may not have happened in the course of their friendship, the movie is not about them. It is about an adult Peter Pan re-awakening the child inside a young boy.
Freddie Highmore (Peter) and Nick Roud (George) are particular standouts among the lads. Freddie so impressed Depp that he is actually playing Charlie in the aforementioned Wonka remake - and once you see this, you will celebrate that casting choice! He is heartbreakingly grave and sweet. It is impossible to imagine such youths today, but they have all the gravitas, manners, mannerisms, and innocent minds that are unthinkable in a child of today. The movie made me feel cozy and sad and gloriously happy all at once. It is inspiring.
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These reviews (c) 2004 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
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