Finding Neverland

Those wondering about the name of my blog, it's pretty simple really. Finding Neverland was by far my favourite film from last year, and believe me - I watched a lot of films. There is something universal about its themes that i find totally appealing. Anyway as my first post i thought i would attach this long and sometimes mastobatory review of Finding Neverland from last year. Here goes...

This movie struck me at my very core, the very soul of my being, that’s how emotionally affecting this movie is because it awoke my slumbering inner child, and reminded me how important it is to never lose touch with innocence. That is the most important thing to me about this movie and it’s the message I take with me every time I watch it. Innocence. What is innocence? How does one define it? Is it important? What is more important, innocence or experience? Is it possible to have both at the same time without losing sight of either one? I don’t know, but those are the questions I find myself asking when I watch this movie.

The movie does so many things perfectly, if I was to list them all I would end up writing a 2000 word essay just on this one movie which I am sure none of you want to read, but I absolutely loved how they showed the flowering of the Peter Pan story by adding these little fantastical touches to scenes with the Llewelyn Davies family, like when the grandmother is bossing the children to go to bed and she grows a little hook on her hand, or when Barrie envisions the boys flying out of their beds into the sky when they are meant to be going to bed and keep jumping up and down on their beds etc

This applies to showing Barrie’s own fantastical imagination too, like right near the beginning when we see his previous play, suddenly it starts raining in the theatre as we obviously know Barrie is thinking the night has been a washout etc. And other scenes when he is just playing with the children like the cowboys and Indians shootout, and you see Peter already losing his childhood prematurely “that’s crazy, Indians can’t fly”

How adorable are the children?!!?!?!? They put the English children from Narnia to shame, I mean… one look at Michael is enough to melt your heart, he is just far too cute! And his accent… aww “Can we have him for supper?” “Have him to stay for supper, we’re not cannibals” I love his unwitting honesty and how he speaks the truth when no-one else would have dared “Is he in trouble? Because I’ve been with grandma alone and know what its like”

And Peter, played by Freddie Highmore.. has there ever been a better child performance on screen? Every scene he is in he threatens to steal the show from Depp and Winslet, he really is that good! In fact he is so good that his performance carried on into the next film I saw him in which was Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and I am not alone on this one as the friend I went with found this problem too. He was so affecting in Neverland that for the first 30 minutes of Charlie I was on the verge of crying simply by the mere act of looking at the boy, now that’s what I call acting. Even though the tone of the movie was completely different and I shouldn’t have been feeling any sort of emotion like that I couldn’t help it.. all I was thinking about was that final scene in Neverland on the park bench (and by the way, if you don’t shed a tear on that scene then you really are soulless.)

There are so many memorable scenes that I have from this movie between Barrie and Peter (of course the most memorable is the park bench scene but there are dozens of others) Like when he gives Peter the book to write down his adventures “Talk about the talking whale” “What whale?” “The one that’s trapped inside your imagination waiting to get out” ahh… or how about “Stop lying to me! Im sick of grown ups lying to me” I wont be made a fool!”

The whole cast is excellent as well as the children, Dustin has a number of great scenes and Radha Mitchell plays the isolated housewife/ambitious social climber to a tee. No-one comes close to Peter though, not even Depps remarkable performance. His accent was perfect, as far as my knowledge of Scottish accents go :p but not once was I thinking of him as Depp the movie star, only Barrie, the creator of one of the most timeless stories of the twentieth century. Depp has a remarkable chameleonic quality to his acting that few others can match.

Anyway, other aspects:

I love how they contrast the playful and supposedly meaningless things that Barrie gets up to with the Llewelyn Davies boys against 19^th aristocratic life in London, for example all the talk of “future prospects” and “social contacts” now come on, life would be rather dull if that was all there was too it, it reminds me of Oscar Wilde and how he so expertly satirised these retarded social conventions. What do such phrases mean anyway, they are just empty words to me…It’s a pity that society back then valued such things over childhood, innocence, wonder, play etc.. far more important things in my opinion.

What about the cinematography, and the score? It rightly deserved the Oscar for best soundtrack, the theme music has stayed with me the whole year and I am listening to it now as I write, it so perfectly complements the sense of childlike wonder that people feel when they experience Peter Pan for the first time on the stage. There is some lovely shots in the movie as well, like when Barrie spies the boys through his newspaper (which had a hole in it from the nurse cutting out bad press reviews of his latest play lol) and OMG, what about that amazing shot during the opening night, when Peter and Wendy are stuck on the rock with the water coming up around them.. yet the kite can only hold one of them, so Wendy gets on the kite and at that moment the camera makes a glorious swoop around the audience and then zooms in on Peter to show how amazed everyone is with the story, it really captures the sense of wonder that is on display.

Barrie really was the boy who never grew up, there is an excellent line after the opening night when the audience discover that Peter was the inspiration for Peter Pan only for him to say “Im not peter, he is” (talking about Barrie) And it was a stroke of brilliance to put the orphans scattered around the theatre, their laughter and amazement bringing the adults into the magic as well and getting them reacquainted with their inner child.

Having watched this movie three times now I can say with fair authority that thankfully unlike some films Neverland is not subject to the law of diminishing returns, each time I have watched it by the time the ending comes around I am bawling like a baby, pretty much from the opening night through to the end credits I am choked up with tears and can’t breath through my nose because all that crying has blocked the passageways. The private play for Sylvia is really moving… “That… is Neverland” It was really touching how the Grandmother was the first to clap when Peter uttered that famous line, watching the special features on the DVD that line has never failed in a live audience.

And thinking about that line as I watched it a third time the other day, It became clear to me that fairies are a metaphor for innocence, how they are nearly all dead because children became preoccupied with other things and forgot about them, it’s the same thing as what happens to innocence when we grow up, it reminds me of Wordsworth and his poems of experience and innocence, comparing the two states and seeing whether they co-exist or can only exist as to separate entities… In this day and age I think it is more important than ever to hold on to that innocence, at least some of it anyway.. because without it the world would be a really boring place. I yearn and yearn for those years back when I was 5-8, Micheal and Peters age, when you didn’t have to deal with adult problems and everything was so magical and wonderful, I was reminded of this even today when I saw Chicken Little and I could hear this little child behind me getting all worked up and laughing and screaming with the movie “go chicken little, go, you can do it” etc, It actually enhanced the experience for me to no end as It reminded me of those times long ago when I first went to the movies and was wowed just like this little child was being today.. I couldn’t help but smile as I listened to him.

Go see it now and get reacquainted with your inner child, this is a truly magical film.