Just believe!

Rating: 8/10 (25 November 2004)

Sir James Barrie was a man who refused to grow up. In doing so, he lived in a Neverland world where children had a prominent place. Mr. Barrie thought the world belong to children.
Marc Forster has brilliantly succeeded in showing us Sir James Barrie, whose ideas were ahead of the times in which he lived. He plays homage to the legacy this man left behind, namely, "Peter Pan", the eternal hopeful story of what's good in mankind and how children will always know better that believing and hoping are the best ways to counter attack the cynicism around them.
The casting of Johnny Depp as Sir James, is one of the most felicitous details this movie has going for itself. Not only does Mr. Depp is a natural actor who shines in everything he does, but he goes under the skin of the writer and makes us think we are watching the man himself. Mr. Depp is at his best.
Equally brilliant is Kate Winslet. She is Sylvia Llewelyn Davis, the mother of the four boys that befriend Sir James in the park. She sees in him a surrogate father since the real one has died. Evidently the facts have been changed somehow by the authors of the play and the screen treatment because supposedly the real father was alive and well at the time they met Mr. Barrie. Ms. Winslet is charming as Sylvia. This actress conveys the idea of the love of her children and loyalty for the man that came to become a friend and a platonic admirer.
Julie Christie plays Sylvia's mother, Emma du Maurier, the bourgeois woman who resents the friendship between her daughter and Sir James. Ms. Christie has not had a big part in films recently and she does wonders to make Mrs. du Maurier to be the hateful person she is, until the end, when she realizes she had been wrong about Sir James all along.
Radha Mitchell appears as Mary Barrie, the woman who was against the involvement between her husband and Sylvia. She is a complicated woman who will condemn her man before he is proved guilty. Ms. Mitchell is excellent also in everything she does, although she has little to do in here. Freddie Highmore is Peter, the young man who inspired the character of "Peter Pan" and he is wonderful as the confused young man until he is asked to believe by the man who was like a father to him and his brothers.
A delightful time at the cinema for those young at heart!