Big Disappointment

Rating: 3/10 (9 June 2005)

FINDING NEVERLAND was a big disappointment to me. I was expecting an enlightening, magical look at the creative process and what inspired James Barrie to write "Peter Pan" around the turn of the century. I felt as a viewer I got very little. We never learn the first thing about the man or his playwriting abilities. Johnny Depp plays this character on one note through the whole film: there is no emotion, no passion, very little to reveal the inner character. He is portrayed as a hack playwright who somehow rediscovers his muse by hanging out with four young boys and their recently widowed mother, day after day, week after week. He neglects his wife at home. He never explains anything about why he is doing this. The basis of the plot is his deteriorating marriage, and the hostility of the widow's mother (Julie Christie) toward his attentions to the family. This film is extremely slow-moving and drab, the plot mundane, and virtually nothing ever happens that is intriguing, unexpected or remotely magical. Maybe as a Baby Boomer I was conditioned to expect a Disneyfied concept of Peter Pan. I somehow expected more. I have enjoyed Johnny Depp in other films but this is to be avoided unless you are searching for a sedative. About the only positive thing I can say is the boy who plays one of the kids, Peter, (Freddie Highmore) was quite appealing.