Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

Finding Neverland (PG)

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Directed by: Marc Forster
Starring: Johnny Depp
November 2004

“Magical Retelling of Tired Tale”


Based on the real life trials and successes of playwright, J.M. Barrie, the visionary who brought us Peter Pan, Finding Neverland is a moving film, rich in character and imagination. Finding Neverland is pure drama, so viewers looking for anything else will be sorely disappointed (like those two, giggly teenage girls who sat right behind me). The movie really delivers emotionally, revealing the human condition at its best and worst—its brightest and darkest.

Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean) is brilliant as Barrie and pulls off a surprisingly authentic Scottish brogue. Showcasing his expansive range, Depp masterfully reveals just how adept he is at being serious or silly and how skillfully he can morph from one into the other.

In the midst of a failing marriage, mediocre theater attendance and scathing reviews for his plays, Barrie escaped into the realms of his fertile imagination and created Neverland, a magical world, but what’s more, a guiding philosophy for his life. It’s this philosophy of optimism that anchors Barrie during the storms that incessantly assail him…the theater owner (a very un-Hook-like Dustin Hoffman) is pressuring him to produce a hit, his wife leaves him for another man, rumors of inappropriate activity surround his friendship with the newly widowed Sylvia Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four sons (two of them named Michael and Peter), the palpable disdain and disapproval he receives from Sylvia’s controlling mother (Julie Christy) and Sylvia’s untimely death from an unknown disease.

Winslet plays the beleaguered-but-not-showing-it single mother to the hilt; Barrie is a breath of fresh air to her lonely life, a touch of freedom and spontaneity to banish the doldrums of her regulated existence. The Davies children were excellently cast; their appearance, accents and attitudes are appropriate to the milieu and add to the movie’s emotional impact in small, but crucial ways…especially tenderhearted, teary-eyed Peter.

Dustin Hoffman’s appearances are infrequent, but his portrayal of the laconic theater owner is touching in an impersonal way—he genuinely believes in Barrie’s talent and is willing to put his money, reputation and career on the line for the young playwright. Together, they’re a potent team: one has the vision to fill theater seats and the other has a driving passion to fill people’s hearts with adventure and wonderment.

This account depicts Barrie as the quintessential gentleman, and the movie, itself, is a gentle thunder that doesn’t “wow” you, but has a lingering quality that lasts long after you’ve left the theater.
Finding Neverland is magical cinema that transports the viewer to a place of hope and beauty that resides somewhere between our hearts and the second star to the right.

Rating: 3