Silly message, but not a bad film

Rating: 6/10 (24 March 2005)

I've become so dismayed by the quality of the recent crop of "A-class" dramas that I now go into them with zero expectations, just to avoid disappointment. Finding Neverland, however, surpassed my expectation of zero and, to my surprise, turned out to be quite a good film. It's not brilliant, nor is it a masterpiece but it's definitely worth a watch and is certainly one of the better films to be released recently. The crux of the story is fundamentally flawed, as it professes that is anything is possible if we 'believe', which is, of course, a blatant falsity as anyone that has been alive longer than five minutes will know. The film appears to realise this somewhat however, and this is shown through it's ending, which lends the film some extra credibility. In spite of unrealistic message, Finding Neverland is still worthwhile as the magic of the plot does shine through and even though we know it's not realistic; we can still believe it. Don't you just love irony?
Johnny Depp is certainly one of, if not the, best actor of today and he shows that in this movie. His performance is charismatic and fun, and you can tell that Depp is an artist that really enjoys his craft. He is matched by a woman that is one of the best actresses working today, a certain Kate Winslet. Aside from being beautiful, Kate has matured as an actress since films like Heavenly Creatures and her blip with Titanic and she shows that with a prime performance in this movie. Even the child actors do well in this film, which is a rarity indeed. Even more so since they're not THAT irritating. The film is notable for the way that it portrays it's central characters' fantasies, which is both inventive and fascinating, and thus lends the film an atmosphere of intrigue. The film isn't quite as magical as it thinks it is, but the magic is increased and the film becomes quite potent because of the way that it portrays it's plot. It stays away from the pitfall of fake sentiment that so many movies fall into and keeps itself alive with the strength of it's characters. Overall; not bad!