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Finding Neverland
(2004)
Marc Forster
Finding Neverland has just been nominated for Best Picture, and I believe it caught five other nods in its wake too. Not that the other categories matter to most people anyway, because if the lead actor isn’t seen or the producers aren’t picking up their BP statue who cares, right? Well lucky for Neverland it got both. Johnny Depp has been nominated for portraying the pirate’s creator this time, instead of last years portrayal of the pirate--which he also took a nod for. The pirate creator is Sir James Mathew Barrie, author of our favorite bedtime story and Disney sensation, Peter Pan. This film isn’t necessarily a retelling of Peter Pan, nor is it a biography of Barrie, it’s more like a explanation of how the story of the little lost boys was created.
For those who know a little bit about Barrie, he had an exceptionally harder life then this film shows. There are several rumors of him being a pedophile or gay, but that latest growing rumor, and probably the most valid, is that physically, he never fully developed, making him impotent. The neglect of his mother while growing up, psychologically and physically, destroyed his maturing, and in a sense he never grew up. This makes Barrie the true Peter Pan. But don’t expect such information to be shown in this film, no way. This film is for the whole family. With its magic and its charm, it’s well-done, but still in the end, the truth is avoided. Neverland spends its time showing the magical adventures that Barrie’s imagination creates for some boys he meets at the park, and how these real life situations (speculatively) created Peter Pan’s amazing tales, instead of showing the real life of Barrie. There is also Kate Winslet’s character, who has death lingering over her, but this is handled lightly so that the children in the audience will still be able to pay attention, I guess.
Marc Forster’s film has removed the reality of Barrie’s life and stuffed it full of enchanted situations. These situation make for a nice, charming film, but the cost is that we still don’t have a film about James Barrie. All we have is an explanation of how the characters of the play were created, but not what they mean to Barrie, or to us. This bio picture suffers the same fate as another BP nod and bio picture, Ray. It focuses on the wrong elements of the character’s life, instead of trying to capture what the person’s life was truly about.
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