Review of Finding Neverland (2004) by Mia S — 02 Jan 2010

Finding Neverland is icky. It's whitewashed past the point of any personality or challenge, narratively mechanical, and frighteningly manipulative of the story's reality. You know, like how the kids' father didn't actually die before JM Barrie had met them.

And how he definitely had a thing for Evelyn, not just a simple friendship, right down to the planned engagement. None of that matters here though, because we're supposed to accept Barrie as saint and savior, a sort of real-life Peter Pan as it were, so what you get is Johnny Depp playing a man who the movie can't find any fault with.

It doesn't even matter that he ignores his wife after she asks him not to - but don't worry, she forgives him for it. Of course. In the tradition of fucked-up Oscar nominations, he naturally picked up one for this, by far the least challenging work of his career.

Secret Window was more of an actorly stretch than this. Kate Winslet, similarly, has nothing to do but cough and look bleary. The movie has a few scattered virtues, like Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffman and its handsomely restrained visual composition (not the score, which is overdone and WON the goddamn Oscar), but I doubt that fans of any of this will be willing to lay down 100 minutes of their life for a frustratingly hollow "emotional experience.

".