Most people will agree that Johnny Depp is at his best when he is playing offbeat characters like Jack Sparrow or Edward Scissorhands. His work with Tim Burton is amongst his most popular, whereas whenever he tries to play more seriously, it is very hit-and-miss, with results like The Man Who Cried or The Astronaut’s Wife being major disappointments. But Johnny Depp can be very good in conventional narratives when given the right material, as Finding Neverland has proven. In this film, he is portraying Sir J. M. Barrie, the playwright who created Peter Pan. This film is about that, but more importantly, it is about the imagination and how it can help people cope with loss.
The setting is 1903, and J. M. Barrie has just released his latest play, Little Mary, to a dismal reception. While recuperating from the reviews in Kensington Gardens, he meets the widow Sylvia (Kate Winslet) and her four young sons: George, Jack, Peter, and Michael (Nick Round, Joe Prospero, Freddie Highmore, and Luke Spill). Through the boys’ youthful spirit and imagination, Barrie finds his muse again, as well as becoming a great playmate, developing a strong friendship with them all. Their games give him ideas that he begins to incorporate into a new play about children and the desire to never grow old or die. While Barrie sees this family as a delightful pastime where both sides benefit, others have less altruistic views on the relationship, including his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell). This eventually leads to her divorcing him. Also, Sylvia’s mother, Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie), who has arrived to help care for her because of an unidentified illness, objects to the time he spends with her.
As Barrie’s new play, Peter Pan, starts to come together, he faces opposition from his producer, Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman), who agrees to finance it but believes it will not appeal to the upper-class theatergoers. Barrie’s solution to this is to pepper the opening-day audience with the children from a nearby orphanage. This works as the kids’ delight spills over into the older audience, who delight in the enjoyment the children are having. But Sylvia is unable to attend; her illness has progressed to the point that she can no longer leave the house.
The film takes the approach of showing reality juxtaposed with the world of the imagination. We see this when Barrie first meets the boys in Kensington Gardens and performs a dog trick for them, allowing the kids to imagine his dog is a bear trained to dance. Later, he will include them in his games, each of them acting out an elaborate pirate drama, each kid adding their own imagination to the story. The visuals are heavily stylized and surreal, adding to the charm of the boys’ imaginations. These moments inspire Barrie and contribute to the writing of Peter Pan.
It’s not an easy feat to be able to pull off being this full of happiness and imagination while also accurately depicting grief and sadness. The character of Peter is our inside character to this sadness. He visibly struggles more than his siblings over the loss of their dad, and he sees the same thing happening with his mother as her condition worsens. He is sensitive to the little lies adults tell their children to try and shield them from the harsh realities of life, and he fights back against those lies. In some ways, he is more mature than his older brothers because he sees things in a more adult way.
Sylvia knows she is dying but refuses to see a doctor anymore, wishing to push the narrative that things are not as serious as she knows they are. When her oldest son breaks his arm in an accident, he forces the issue with her, refusing to have the bone set unless she goes to the doctor herself. This is when she reveals that she already knows what it is she has and that the treatment will not save her. Barrie offers his resources, too, but whatever it is she has, even his money cannot pay for a cure that doesn’t exist. The best that he can do is help her and her children see that things will be alright and it is okay to move on.
He does this through his play. It is arranged for his entire cast to perform an abridged version of Peter Pan for her at her home since she is too weak to attend the play at the theater. Through the symbolism of the drama and the imagination as the backdoors are opened up to a vast new world, it is implied that Sylvia should go off to Neverland. She takes her boys’ hands and slowly walks out. This transitions to her funeral, the message clearly driven home.
This is based on a true story which, of course, has been dramatized and altered some to make for a more compelling narrative. But a lot of the truth is also found here including the relationship between Barrie and Sylvia. It’s a beautiful story that tugs at the heartstrings with just enough emotional manipulation to make you feel something powerful when you watch it. Some may call it treacle and they wouldn’t be wrong, but it’s much more than that. There is real drama here, rooted in a real-world tragedy. These kinds of dramas always move me more than anything fictional. I grew up watching the Disney version of Peter Pan. It wasn’t until I was grown that I started learning more about the history of that fantasy. Seeing it dramatized in Finding Neverland takes that one step further and really brings it home.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Richard N. Gladstein and Nellie Bellflower
Best Actor: Johnny Depp
Best Adapted Screenplay: David Magee
Best Art Direction: Gemma Jackson and Trisha Edwards
Best Costume Design: Alexandra Byrne
Best Film Editing: Matt Chesse
Best Original Score: Jan A. P. Kaczmarek (won)
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Release Date: November 12, 2004
Running Time: 101 minutes
Rated PG
Starring: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, and Dustin Hoffman
Directed by: Marc Forster
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