Slow to start but a fantastic film

Rating: 8/10 (30 January 2005)

"Magnificent. The boy is gone. In the last 30 seconds... you became a grown-up." It's probably quite important to inform those who perhaps do not know anything at all about Finding Neverland, that it is not the actual story of Peter Pan  it is the story of Sir James Matthew Berrie who created Peter Pan.
After writing a theatrical flop, Berrie (Depp) heads down to the local park to ponder new ideas for a play, where he meets Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Winslet) and her children  one of whom is Peter (Highmore). Peter is a young boy struggling to come to terms with his father's death and immediately bonds the closest to Barrie. Barrie spends more and more time with Sylvia and her children, causing issues within the 'polite society' as he spends more time with Sylvia than his own wife (Mitchell), and even more time with the young boys. Berrie encourages the children to use their imaginations and takes them all on adventures  the basis of which would become Berrie's next play 'Peter Pan'.
I really enjoyed Depp's performance as Barrie, and Winslet's performance as an ill widow trying to raise her children in the hardest of circumstances was fantastic. Melbourne girl Radha Mitchell was extremely good as the lonely wife who has lost her husband to his work and perhaps another family, but the most surprising performance for me, came from Freddie Highmore, who I found not only took, but ran, with the highly emotional character of Peter Llewelyn Davies. Johnny Depp obviously admired the eleven year old Highmore, as he requested Tim Burton to cast him as Charley, in the up coming remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Director Marc Foster (Monster's Ball) did a great job, and while it did take me a little while to get into this film, once in, I found it to be a wonderful piece of work, which I would love to watch again.