A Movie with an Imagination All Its Own

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2005)

Imagination is the fuel of movies. From the most light-hearted of animated features to the grimmest of human tragedies, it is imagination that creates the characters and the stories. But what about the films regarding the subject of imagination? Most of them are filled with cheesy dialogue and songs about love, but Finding Neverland is, shall we say, a horse of a different color.
Finding Neverland is the story of playwright J.M. Barrie, and the manner in which his famous play Peter Pan came into being in the early 1900s. The story revolves around Barrie and his "adventures" with a widow and her four sons. Barrie is played by Johnny Depp with a subtlety that shows the full range of Depp's acting skill. Whereas a movie about a playwright with great imagination could have been a loud, comedic affair, Depp stays quiet and sincere. Kate Winslet as Mrs. Davies, the widow, is somewhat overshadowed by Depp's performance, but her own performance is good in its own right. Most surprisingly, the four young sons do a decent acting job, rarely ever seeming forced in their dialogue.
The film is also directed quite well by Marc Forster as the scenes travel between Barrie's imagination and reality. The blend of these two elements is close to perfection, as fantasy is contrasted sharply with harsh reality. Also, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek's score has gotten some buzz, and the buzz is well-deserved. True, the melodies of the score don't remain in one's mind after the film has ended, but that is merely because the rest of the film is so captivating.
As I mentioned before, I'm thankful that Finding Neverland didn't collapse into a stereotypical Disney-esquire film. In fact, during the end credits, no tacky song about imagination is to be heard. However, the film does not totally escape the horrible dialogue found in other films of the sort like, "your imagination can take you anywhere," and various pathetic nonsense of the sort. My only other complaint regards the film's beginning, which catapults Barrie so quickly into an intimate relationship the Davies family, that the viewer barely has time to catch his breath and finds himself in a state of disbelief that such a relationship could develop so quickly.
Overall, this one's worth your time due to some great performances, pleasing direction, and avoidance, for the most part, of stereotypical imagination material.
Final Grade: B+.