A schmaltzy whitewash

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 2004)

Anybody who knows any details about the real-life J.M. Barrie and
the five (not four) Llewellyn-Davies boys will be grossed out by this
blob of Lyle's Golden Syrup. I love Johnny Depp, but why cast him
as a (supposed to be) wizened middle-aged eccentric Scotsman?
Why gloss over Barrie's twisted obsession with these boys? Why
have their father already dead? Why make Mary Barrie into a venal,
frigid socialite? She was an artist and a dog lover who left her
husband because he didn't want to have sex with her and give her
a child...he'd rather co-opt somebody else's kids. Why make up all
this stuff? (Why make a movie out of a play that committed these
crimes?) The true story is much more gripping. I don't know who's going to
watch this. Those interested in literary history will be repelled; all
the fairy dust in the world can't keep this scow aloft.