Beautifully Touching and Perfectly Cast

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2005)

Imagine a wonderful film with no violence, no obscenities, and no torrid love scene...FINDING NEVERLAND proves that, yes, it still can be done successfully in this day and age and stand strongly against other films.
Johnny Depp play the title role as the author of Peter Pan, struggling from writer's block after his last play flops. Kate Winslet is wonderful as Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies, the widowed mother of 4 boys and head of the family who inspire Barrie to write Peter Pan. Julie Christie is great as the grandmother you love to hate--fearful for her daughter's reputation, but also "protecting what she has" as she puts it during a strong talk with Barrie.
The 4 young men who play the Davies brothers are especially impressive. They look and act like brothers and hardly seem to be acting at all because they are so natural. Note that all 4 of the boys lended their names to the story: John (Jack) and Michael are Wendy's younger brothers, George is the father (and the oldest son), and of course Peter is the boy who refuses to grow up. Legend has it that Barrie created the name Wendy and it was first heard in Peter Pan.
Of course the stand-out young man is Freddie Highmore, who plays the young Peter from whom Barrie borrows the name of his title character. I think we'll see great things from him in the future. He'll be playing Charlie Bucket in Tim Burton's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Johnny Depp will be Willy Wonka. These are great roles for Johnny, who seems to be defying aging himself. Who knows how FINDING NEVERLAND would've turned out if Johnny Depp hadn't been cast as J.M. Barrie? Fortunately, we'll never know.
Dustin Hoffman does a superb turn as Charles Frohman, Barrie's producer. Of course, we all know that Dustin Hoffman can do anything on screen, but it is fun to see him linked to Peter Pan once more after his hilarious turn as Captain Hook in HOOK, with Robin Williams.
If differently cast, with different editing, this could've been a very boring movie. It certainly doesn't play like most of the modern-day films. Luckily for the viewers, it IS extremely well cast and well edited and you'll find yourself wanting to find Neverland again and again. It is sure to become a modern-day classic.