Peter Pan

Rating: 8/10 (6 April 2006)

The boundless imagination of James Mattew Barrie the man behind 'Peter Pan', the classic literature that speaks to the child in all of us. Finding Neverland traverses both fantasy and everyday reality, melding the difficulties and heartbreak of adult life with the spellbinding allure and childlike innocence of the boy who never grows up. An emotional tale. It all begins with the successful Scottish playwright J.M Barrie watching the opening of his latest play to the ho-hum reaction among the polite society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but bored of the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some serious inspiration. Unexpectedly he finds it one day on his daily walk with his dog in a London park. Barrie encounters four fatherless boys and their beautiful recently widowed mother. Despite the disapproval of the boy's grandmother and the resentment of his own wife, Barrie becomes a good friend to the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises, games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings, cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted fairies and the four kids into the lost boys of Neverland.