Considering Marc Forster gave us the amazingly raw yet brilliantly touching ‘Moster’s Ball’, ‘Finding Neverland’ was probably a bit of a leap, at least in style, if not in underplayed tones of emotion and the power of human touch. This film is almost as good as the last one and that is a very comforting feeling.
The story is beautifully crafted and filmed. Mr. Forster has given us another reason to go back to Peter Pan. He has given us another reason to believe that, even if only in our imagination, Hollywood (or is it just Miramax) has often the stomach for a film that is neither a blockbuster, not an independent film, nor overly artistic or even emotional can still be made and made well.
Johnny Depp is JM Barrie, the Scottish play write who gave the world ‘Peter Pan’, the story of men who remain little boys at heart or simply put the story of boys who reject the adult world as an overt sham. He meets a widow with four kids and he finds in her little boys a bridge across forever, a reason to celebrate childhood and banish manhood, a reason to imagine rather than rationalize a reason to fly rather than make careful calculated steps toward eventual mendacity.
Johnny Depp is as much a Scottish author as much he was a pirate or an oddity with scissors for hands. Not only is Mr. Depp an actor with one of the widest range of talent, he is also an amazingly fearless salesman. He plays to his strengths: representing an almost mythical alienation from immediate world; and in doing so he becomes better and even more apart from everyone else.
The boys have done an amazing job as well. Kate Winslet as their mother plays her lowkey role with a lot of attention and heart. However, Radha Mitchell, as JM Barrie’s estranged yet identifiable wife, comes across as a more powerful actress.
This neverland is not for the finders but for those who seek it, at least some semblance of it, everyday in their lives.
The story is beautifully crafted and filmed. Mr. Forster has given us another reason to go back to Peter Pan. He has given us another reason to believe that, even if only in our imagination, Hollywood (or is it just Miramax) has often the stomach for a film that is neither a blockbuster, not an independent film, nor overly artistic or even emotional can still be made and made well.
Johnny Depp is JM Barrie, the Scottish play write who gave the world ‘Peter Pan’, the story of men who remain little boys at heart or simply put the story of boys who reject the adult world as an overt sham. He meets a widow with four kids and he finds in her little boys a bridge across forever, a reason to celebrate childhood and banish manhood, a reason to imagine rather than rationalize a reason to fly rather than make careful calculated steps toward eventual mendacity.
Johnny Depp is as much a Scottish author as much he was a pirate or an oddity with scissors for hands. Not only is Mr. Depp an actor with one of the widest range of talent, he is also an amazingly fearless salesman. He plays to his strengths: representing an almost mythical alienation from immediate world; and in doing so he becomes better and even more apart from everyone else.
The boys have done an amazing job as well. Kate Winslet as their mother plays her lowkey role with a lot of attention and heart. However, Radha Mitchell, as JM Barrie’s estranged yet identifiable wife, comes across as a more powerful actress.
This neverland is not for the finders but for those who seek it, at least some semblance of it, everyday in their lives.