Review of Finding Neverland (2004) by Filipeneto — 14 Oct 2021

This film is not exactly a film about Peter Pan, but about its creator, the English playwright J. M. Barrie. Contrary to what the film seems to indicate, he was a highly regarded playwright and had prestige when he wrote the play that definitively immortalized him. In fact, the film is a little inaccurate in the way it tells the events of the playwright's life, which is always a pity for me, who appreciate it when a biographical film is faithful to the life of the one who is biographed. The movie is good, it's really good. You just need to understand this: it's a movie, so it's partially fiction.

In this film, Barrie is a man who is unhappy in his marriage and deeply dissatisfied with his own plays, someone who feels he can do better and demands it of himself. So he decides to use his life with a group of children, sons of a London high society widow, to be inspired by the creation of a new story. But the unusual relationship between him and the Davies family will be opposed by his own wife, the children's grandmother, and also by the sarcastic looks of Victorian society.

The film makes great use of the relationship between Barrie and the children... a relationship that would surely make many people frown these days. In fact, we live today under a society that I think is more suspicious and that has difficulty believing that someone really has good intentions in their attitudes. The story is good, the script, despite not being faithful to Barrie's life, is well done and well written, and the direction of Marc Forster proved to be very good.

The cast has several well-known names, but the main role is Johnny Depp. He's one of those actors that we're used to associating with strange, unusual, out-of-the-box characters. In this case, it's the opposite. He embodies an elegant, discreet, restrained Victorian gentleman with a quiet personality, albeit with a vivid imagination. He once again shows versatility and skill as an actor, and does a very happy job. Kate Winslet also needs no introduction and has signed credits. In this film, she presents us with a very good job, where she manages to rub shoulders with her colleagues in a character that seems to me to be psychologically demanding. Julie Christie brings the Davies family matriarch to life in an elegant way, very in keeping with the historical period, and in a convincing way. Despite appearing much less on screen and having a nasty character, Radha Mitchell successfully carried out her task and handled it well.

Technically, the film has an excellent cinematography, which actually manages to be even more interesting when it shows us, in brief glimpses, the magical world that begins to emerge in the playwright's mind. The construction of the sets and the choice of props helped to create a convincing and realistic period environment, and the selection of some sets even added visual elegance to the film, especially in the theater and park scenes. Also, a word of praise for the idealization of the costumes and for the soundtrack.