Emotionally manipulative

Ruwini JAYAWARDANA

The enchantment behind Peter Pan is in its make believe world of fairies, flying children and adventure. Marc Forster’s Finding Neverland is just as magical rooting firmly from an imaginative zone.

The central concept of the film is that Scottish playwright J M Barrie found inspiration to save his flagging career from a beautiful widow and her sons. He was able to script his well-loved Peter Pan story using the experiences he had while spending time with single mother Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her family.

After suffering yet another failure on stage, Barrie has a chance meeting with Sylvia and her four boys. He soon realizes that the boys are hungry for male companionship, possibly a father role to keep them company. His father’s death has been a bitter blow especially for young Peter because he has seemingly lost his liveliness and power of imagination.

This gives Barrie a chance to unleash the child within him by playing cowboys and Indians with the kids and encouraging them to explore their own creativity in an imaginary world. His childlike nature not only manages to enchant the lads but even charms their mother and a friendship forms between them.

The relationship takes its toll on Barrie’s married life as his wife, Mary, feels excluded and neglected. Sylvia’s overprotective and overbearing mother too views this alliance with suspicion and tries to draw the line in Barrie’s close alliance with the family.

Barrie profits through experience and pens a children’s production. He even convinces the theatre owner Charles Frohman into staging the play, ‘Peter Pan’.

We get glimpses of the wonders and trails the production team faces while staging the play and more surprises such as Barrie’s technique of having orphans amid the upper class audience on screen.

Forster had adapted the theatre production from Allan Knee’s play The Man Who Was Peter Pan. Though the details are fictionalized, the account in which Peter, Tinkerbell, Captain Hook and incidents such as the kite flying scene is etched is aptly inserted so that it seems more or less real to the viewers. The story is cleverly and touchingly presented. Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet don their roles with grace and the attraction between them is obvious from the beginning. Depp loses himself in his character and manages to discard even his own image. Winslet enchants as Sylvia.

Her performance is something worth noting. The scene in which Barrie confronts Sylvia about her illness is packed with emotional punch so that you will not be able to help the tears springing into your eyes.

Freddie Highmore stands out as one of the Davies boys. Not only is the main role of Barrie’s play named after him but he also manages to match the up to the acting prowess of the elder actors stride for stride.

The costumes are interesting and well done. The background of Edwardian London is flawless. Scenes of the park which Barrie infests with his dog and his meeting place with the Davies family are breathtaking.

The movie embodies the regular features of other Disney movies, however Finding Neverland breaks free from them in the second half as it takes on a realistic turn.

The actual scenes in which the Peter Pan production is staged takes you back in time to be among the audience at the theatre.

Finding Neverland will no doubt make you yearn to unearth the child in you. It is a ‘feel good’ movie which is recommended for the whole family for it is not often that a movie inspires the soul as well as touches the heart. With vivid insights into the playwright’s extraordinary mind this is one film which is destined to become a true classic.