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Movie Review: Finding Neverland
By William Sternman
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Finding
Neverland
Starring Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, and Dustin Hoffman
Directed by Marc Forster
Written by Alan Knee, David Magee
In
pop culture, it’s known as the “Peter Pan syndrome”
and it describes grown men who, like the hero of James M. Barrie’s
most famous play, remain little boys forever in a world of their own imagination.
As depicted in Marc Forster’s new movie, Barrie (Johnny Depp) has
at least one foot in that imaginary land himself. He seems happier when
he’s playing with the four prepubescent sons of his attractive neighbor
(Kate Winslet) than with the neighbor herself or his own childless wife
(Radha Mitchell).
Adapted from Allan Knee’s play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by David Magee, Finding Neverland has no discernible plot thrust, no buildup to a dramatic climax. Instead, it derives almost all its staying power from the personality of its major actor.
Depp has had a remarkable and unusual career. As a result of starring in the TV series 21 Jump Street, he could have, like Leonardo DiCaprio (who can also act, given the chance), become a teenage heartthrob. Instead, he chose to develop his acting ability by taking chances in such non-defibrillating movies as What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (in which DiCaprio gives a dazzling performance), Edward Scissorhands, Benny & Joon, and Ed Wood.
In this movie, his acting ability counts for less than his charm and ability to glide effortlessly between the real world of Edwardian England and the fantasy world that eventually becomes Neverland.
The only acting of any substance comes from Julie Christie as Winslet’s hard-bitten croc of a mother, who disapproves of Barrie’s unorthodox ways and doesn’t want to share her authority over her family with him. Dustin Hoffman is wasted as the American impresario Charles Frohman, who is remembered these days, if at all, for having gone down with the Titanic.
Enjoyable as Finding Neverland is, I would have preferred a deeper exploration of the inner life of the man who, like Lewis Carroll, seemed more at home in the whimsical world of children than the realm of the English upper class.
Barrie was a darker character than this movie suggests. He was the ninth of ten children and not his strict mother’s favorite. When the favorite died in an accident, the 6-year-old Barrie tried to take the dead boy’s place in his mother’s affections by dressing up in his clothes. When he would visit the bed-ridden woman, she would say something like: Oh, it’s you. I was hoping it was David come back to me.
In Margaret Ogilvy, his biography of his mother, he wrote, "She lived twenty-nine years after his death. . . But I had not made her forget the bit of her that was dead; in those nine-and-twenty years [David] was not removed one day farther from her."
It has been proven in experiments with animals and in intensive-care units for premature babies that a lack of touching literally stunts a child’s growth—physically, intellectually and emotionally. Barrie was only 5’0” tall; after his death it was discovered that his genitalia were shrunken and his testicles had never descended. He suffered from migraines and rarely smiled. In school, he observed his classmates from a distance, as though he were watching them in a play, and apparently never had a girlfriend.
Men who, despite their age and appearance, are really little boys inside always feel more comfortable with other little boys than with girls or adults. Having sex with another little boy is not considered abuse; it’s just in the natural, innocent order of things. It has been suggested that Barrie might have been a pedophile. There is even a single line of dialogue in the movie that hints at such a possibility.
What a richer, darker, more compelling and multilayered character study Finding Neverland might have been. Depp is too tall and fresh-faced to have played Barrie in that movie. (One assumes he is more physically intact as well.) But just imagine what Danny DeVito or Michael Dunn (Ship of Fools) might have done with the part.
As it stands, Finding Neverland is too slight for a full-length movie. Also, perhaps because I’m so familiar with Peter Pan itself, my mind, as is its wont, tended to wander, if not wonder. My mind, of course, is my problem, and you should pay it no mind when it comes to deciding whether or not to see this light yet enjoyable movie.
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William Sternman's short stories have been published in England, Hungary, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as well as the U.S. His book and movie reviews have appeared in Audience, Films in Review, Bestsellers, The Drummer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Herald, The St. Petersburg Times and www.movie-vault.com. He has been a volunteer tutor at the Center for Literacy since 1998. He received a fellowship grant in literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
© 2004 Me Three