I am becoming a Johnny Depp fan. Captain Jack Sparrow was certainly a fun character and well played, but it is in such roles as Willy Wonka and J.M. Barrie that Depp demonstrates the range of his theatrical ability. Depp is one of the few actors who, when you watch him on the screen, you see only the character he wants you to see.Adapted from a stage play by Allan Knee, Finding Neverland begins in 1903 with Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie (Depp) at a personal and professional crossroads. At the theater, his most recent play, Little Mary, is pronounced a failure on opening night. At home, his marriage to a social-climbing wife (Radha Mitchell) is imminent of such a judgement itself.
A chance meeting in Kensington Gardens with a widow, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), and her four young sons opens up a deep friendship, and provides the creative ignition to Barrie's greatest work. The playwright forms a particular closeness to Peter (Freddie Highmore), the least biddable of Sylvia's boys and the one most affected by their father's recent death. It is from this terrain that we are invited to trace the roots of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up.
Depp delivers a child-inside-the-man act that you expect to become annoying, but never does. He plays an awkward, rather eccentric man who springs to life in the company of children. His portrayal leaves you with the impression that Barrie's behavior is less a theatrical urge to impress the Llewelyn Davies boys than a boyish delight in pretending. This stands in strong counterpoint to Peter's beyond-his-years sobriety, which creates an "eternal boy meets actual boy" conflict that forms the dominant theme of the movie. This distincition is understood by Peter when, on the opening night of Peter Pan, he is cooed over by people who imagine him to be "the" Peter Pan and he reacts sharply, "I'm not Peter Pan. He is," pointing at Barrie. For his part, Depp's Barrie cuts an oddly disturbing figure. Passive, but intense, in him reside the pleasures, and the dangers, of innocence.
The defining experience of Barrie's own childhood was the death of his older brother David, which he felt forced him to grow up sooner than he should. From this you understand that Barrie's Pan has apparently been summoned from the ghost of his childhood rather than nostalgia for his youth. This allows for a greater appreciation of his efforts to preserve the innocence of the Llewelyn Davies boys ("Boys should never be sent to bed. Every morning they wake up one day older.") and the sorrow he feels when George, the eldest, is forced over the threshold of maturity.
Peter Pan opened in 1904, with most of the events in the movie taking place in 1903. This creates an interesting dynamic for the concept of Barrie's eternal boy, given that in ten years the Llewelyn Davies boys would be confronted with the brutalities of The Great War, making Peter Pan's line, "To die would be an awfully big adventure," particularly poignant.
George would serve as a second lieutenant in Flanders, where he died of a gunshot wound to the head in 1915. John joined the Royal Navy and served in the North Atlantic and would outlive all but his youngest brother. Peter, who served as a signal officer in France and was ultimately awarded the Military Cross, committed suicide in 1960. Michael, whose personality greatly influenced the characteristics of Peter Pan, drowned in 1921. It was acknowledged by his surviving brothers and Barrie that suicide was a possibility. Nicholas was only a year old when Peter Pan hit the stage in 1904. Coincidentally, he was not included in Finding Neverland. Nicholas would survive until 1980.
Rating:
- Buy it now
- Worth $10 at Costco
- Happy we rented it, but also happy we only rented it
- No good at any price
- That numb feeling at the top of your head? That's your cerebral cortex closing up shop
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