Review of Neverwas (2005) by Ty U — 24 Jan 2009

More movies should be made like this.

Not a masterpiece, but certainly a good movie, that is more intelligent, well thought out and unique than most of the crap that is made today, (and that America eats up...Paul Blart is the number one movie in America now? Really??).

This movie, (which I had never even heard of until I was scanning through Netflix for some reason) has several things going for it.

Firstly, McKellen. Has he ever turned in a bad performance in anything? He helped to carry this movie, but even his major role does not dominate it, despite his star power. (positive number one.).

Number two, the others in the movie, well known actors in their own right,(Nick Nolte, William Hurt) have settled for comparatively small roles, and yet are obviously content to be playing them. None of the phoning in feel one often gets from stars who take on "paycheck" roles. I got the feeling everyone in this movie believed in it.

Positive number 3...it actually managed the delightful feat of making fantasy seem real, making reality seem fantastical, and never actually being wrong in either case. I cannot explain how without giving away too much, but the turns it takes, (I would not call them twists, quite) manage to keep a viewer both grounded and willing to believe in "other" things.

A romance is present in the film. IN the budding stage. But it actually proceeds like an average budding romance would...with no instant sex scene required. (There in fact are none.) That is quite refreshing.

And finally the plot, again about which I can reveal little without spoiling, is unique. Though the impetus for the plot has been used to varying degrees of success in many other films, the combination of familiar concepts of redemption, revelation, faith and love actually combine into a story that is not quite like anything I have seen before, directly. Similar, but it's own creature, for certain.

If for now other reason, see this for a typical, but seemingly forgotten McKellen performance. But there are plenty of other reasons to check out this ignored gem, as I have listed here. Go see it for all of the above.