Sometimes we need some magic

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 2008)

Being as I am something of a historical costume fanatic, I loved the look of this film. Quite often I see period films where the period costumes either look perfect but unflattering or have been re-interpreted, for want of a better word, (the recent series The Tudors leaps to mind) to give them some kind of sex appeal for today's audience. But Finding Neverland bowled me over with its wardrobe department - it has achieved that rare status where it combines the image of the typical Edwardian outfits with a kind of wearability and yet the clothes still manage to flatter ever character. Even the four small Llewellyn Davies boys look comfortable and natural in their little suits.
The cinematography looks similarly "antique", and I mean that in the complimentary sense. There is a softness to the look of the film, the colours look like you would expect Edwardian colours to look, nobody has quickly dipped a dress into some bizarrely vivid dye then put it on an extra and hoped it wouldn't be noticed. There is great attention to detail - when Barrie and another character walk down a street, even the extras are immaculately dressed.
Returning to the small boys, whoever cast these children made an incredible decision. They don't even seem to be acting, they behave - whether playing, arguing or just interacting - as though they really are brothers. It's as though they couldn't care less whether the camera is there or not. The set-up of their room - whether by accident or design (I suspect the latter) - is eerily reminiscent of the animated film Peter Pan. The moment when Barrie is summoned into another room by Sylvia's mother and one of the children pipes up, "Is he in trouble? Because I've been alone with Grandmother and I know what it's like," is perfect - just the sort of thing a child might say.
Barrie's discussion with Arthur regarding the appropriateness or otherwise of the time he spends with the boys is something I half-expected. Perhaps then, as now, society's awareness of paedophilia has reached such an extreme point that we look for it where it doesn't exist. (I recall a similar quote from the commentary of another Kate Winslet film, Sense and Sensibility, where the writer and producer are keenly aware that the innocent friendship of a young man and a little girl of twelve would most likely cause panic and questioning of the young man's character if it occurred today. From what I have read of J.M. Barrie, the comments made by the real Llewelyn Davies family and from viewing this film, I don't leave with any impression that there was an inappropriate relationship between Barrie and the young boys but I think it sad that such conclusions are often leapt to just because some outsiders see a situation as potentially sinister.
What I felt Depp's Barrie gained from his association with the children was the ability to explore and indulge his "inner child" in a way that the Edwardian society he lived in would not accept and that his very prim and proper wife did not approve of. It was interesting and rather sad that Mary Barrie seemed partly to want to belong to her husband's world but knew she just couldn't access it as he could. It is almost like Barrie can see into the children's world. There is a whimsical quality to Johnny Depp's performance that reminds me of his character Sam in the 1993 film Benny and Joon - it has exactly the same light touch.
People often think writers, composers and other followers of artistic pursuits are prone to be a little eccentric. As an artist and writer, I love the way Depp's Barrie is so disrespectful of his own work and I can relate to the way the film shows his imagination taking over - I have had countless conversations with my own literary creations.
There were some genuinely touching moments in this film - I don't cry easily watching films and few have moved me to tears. I really believe you can only have this reaction to a film if the characters have been fleshed out sufficiently that you can empathise with them and in Sylvia's final scene (a role in which Kate Winslet looked realistically Edwardian and yet still accessible and aesthetically right to modern eyes) I was in tears. I also liked the way Mrs. Du Maurier softens at the end, realising she should have shown her daughter more respect - she could easily have just been a caricature, a stereotypical "Victorian" grandmother bossing her daughter and grandsons around and ignoring everyone's needs, but she wasn't. A lighter, but still touching, moment came when Barrie revealed what he wanted his twenty-five reserved seats for - the reactions of those audience members who were inconvenienced so that the occupants could sit down were priceless.
On a final note, in this world of ours where we're bombarded with technical wizardry and ever more complex expensive special effects, it should be impossible for me - a person born in the mid-1980s - to imagine how magical the sight of "flying" children would have appeared to Peter Pan's theatre audience in 1903, but somehow I not only understand why the audience find it so, but feel it myself.
I wouldn't have watched this film otherwise - I never saw it at the cinema - but I'm glad I didn't miss it.