|
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| Neverland
is more than an issue of imagination versus reality: it is also a
matter of belief. One does not merely imagine Neverland.
Neverland requires belief -not so much an intellectual assent
as a complete emotional acceptance. When we allow ourselves to believe
in such a place as Neverland (or perhaps the Kingdom of God),
we open the door to a reality that is beyond us. |
(2004) Film Review |
| This
page was created on November 11, 2004
This page was last updated on
August 25, 2005
—Overview
—Review
by Darrel Manson
—Review by Melinda
Ledman
—Review
by Michael Ray
—Review by Matt Hill
—Review by Mark Stokes
—Trailers, Photos
—About this Film
—Spiritual Connections
—Forum
Dial up modems will take a few moments |
| CREDITS |
|
 Directed
by Marc Forster
Play
by Allan Knee
Screenplay by David Magee
Cast
(in credits order)
Johnny Depp .... J.M. Barrie
Kate Winslet .... Sylvia Llewelyn Davies
Julie Christie .... Mrs. Emma du Maurier
Nick Roud .... George Llewelyn Davies
Radha Mitchell .... Mary Barrie
Joe Prospero .... Jack Llewelyn Davies
Freddie Highmore .... Peter Llewelyn Davies
Dustin Hoffman .... Charles Frohman
Kate Maberly .... Wendy Darling (in "Peter Pan")
Luke Spill .... Michael Llewelyn Davis
Kelly Macdonald .... Peter Pan (in "Peter Pan")
Tony Way .... Set Mover
Murray McArthur .... Stage Hand
Ian Hart .... Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Paul Whitehouse .... Stage Manager
Mackenzie Crook .... Mr. Jaspers
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Angus Barnett .... Nana The Dog
David Decio .... Charles Frohman's Theatre Usher
Eileen Essel .... Mrs. Snow
Matt Green .... John Darling (in "Peter Pan")
Paul Hornsby .... Laughing Man at Cricket Match
Toby Jones .... Smee
Suzy Kewer .... Mary McCormack
Kali Peacock .... Emma
William Tomlin .... Lost Boy (in "Peter Pan")
Raymond Waring
Produced
by
Tracey Becker .... associate producer
Nellie Bellflower .... producer
Gary Binkow .... executive producer
Michael Dreyer .... co-producer
Richard N. Gladstein .... producer
Neal Israel .... executive producer
Original Music by Elton John (song "Peter's
Song") and Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Cinematography by Roberto Schaefer
Film Editing by Matt Chesse
MPAA: Rated PG for
mild thematic elements and brief language.
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM,
and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG
|
| TRAILERS
AND CLIPS |
| —Trailers,
Photos |
| CD |
Finding
Neverland
Jan A. P. Kaczmarek
|
| BOOK |
J.M.
Barrie & the Lost Boys
by Andrew Birkin, SHARON GOODE
J. M. Barrie, novelist, playwright,
and author of Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, led
a life almost as magical and interesting as his famous creation. Childless
in his marriage, Barrie grew close to the five young boys of the Llewelyn
Davies family, ultimately becoming their guardian and devoted surrogate
father when they were orphaned. Andrew Birkin draws extensively on
a vast range of material by and about Barrie, including notebooks,
memoirs, and hours of recorded interviews with the Llewelyn Davies
family and their circle, to describe Barrie’s life and the wonderful
world he created for the boys. Originally published in 1979, this
enchanting and richly illustrated account is reissued with a new preface
to mark the release of Neverland, the film of Barrie’s life,
and the upcoming centenary of Peter Pan.
|
| POSTER |
|
| AVAILABILITY
ON VIDEO AND DVD |
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|
| SYNOPSIS
|
| The
boundless imagination of the man behind “Peter Pan” and
the poignancy of his journey combine in this emotional tale inspired
by events in the life of Scottish author James Mathew Barrie. In FINDING
NEVERLAND, director Marc Forster (“Monster’s Ball”)
and an accomplished cast including Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin
Hoffman and Julie Christie take a fictional look at the creation of
“Peter Pan,” the classic of children’s literature
that speaks directly to the child in all of us. FINDING NEVERLAND
traverses both fantasy and everyday reality, melding the difficulties
and heartbreak of adult life with the spellbinding allure and childlike
innocence of the boy who never grows up.
It
all begins as successful Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie (DEPP)
watches his latest play open to a ho-hum reaction among the polite
society of Edwardian England. A literary genius of his times but
bored by the same old themes, Barrie is clearly in need of some
serious inspiration. Unexpectedly, he finds it one day during his
daily walk with his St. Bernard Porthos in London’s Kensington
Gardens. There, Barrie encounters the Llewelyn Davies family: four
fatherless boys and their beautiful, recently widowed mother (WINSLET).
Despite
the disapproval of the boys’ steely grandmother Emma du Maurier
(CHRISTIE) and the resentment of his own wife (RADHA MITCHELL),
Barrie befriends the family, engaging the boys in tricks, disguises,
games and sheer mischief, creating play-worlds of castles and kings,
cowboys and Indians, pirates and castaways. He transforms hillsides
into galleon ships, sticks into mighty swords, kites into enchanted
fairies and the Llewelyn Davies boys into “The Lost Boys of
Neverland.”
From
the sheer thrills and adventurousness of childhood will come Barrie’s
most daring and renowned masterwork, “Peter Pan.” At
first, his theatrical company is skeptical. While his loyal producer
Charles Frohman (HOFFMAN) worries he’ll lose his shirt on
this children’s fantasy, Barrie begins rehearsals only to
shock his actors with such unprecedented requests as asking them
to fly across the stage, talk to fairies made out of light and don
dog and crocodile costumes.
Then,
just as Barrie is ready to introduce the world to “Peter Pan,”
a tragic twist of fate will make the writer and those he loves most
understand just what it means to really believe.
|
 Meet
MICHAEL RAY
Email:
dramaman23@yahoo.com
Web site: Beyond
Film
Mike is a film reviewer with a background in community
theatre directing and acting. He is working on his Masters degree
at Denver Seminary and has a B.A. in English and a minor in Theatre
from Colorado Christian University. He is a musician, preacher, artist,
puppeteer, editor, and writer. |
 Let
me begin by clearly stating that Finding Neverland
will bring a tear to your eye—quite possibly more than one.
And while the film is centered on the life of J.M. Barrie, writer
of the whimsical Peter Pan, the story is anything but fantastical.
Johnny Depp delivers a wonderfully earth-bound performance as the
famed playwright, fleshing out layers of emotional depth and world-weary
charm from within the character. Barrie’s life certainly isn’t
the cartoon land of fairies and pirates that populate his popular
play. Instead, his soul is filled with a profound sorrow that ultimately
inspires him to create a realm of escapism.
Review
continued here
|
 Review
by MELINDA LEDMAN
HJMLedman@yahoo.com.
Melinda Ledman is a graduate
of Baylor University with a Bachelor’s degree in English. During
college, she worked on the film Letter From Waco (director Don Howard),
which won the award for best documentary feature in the 1997 South
by Southwest Film Festival. After she and her husband Rob had their
first child in September 2002, she began free-lance writing full time.
In addition to writing reviews, she most enjoys writing original screenplays.
She gratefully serves God after 12 years of alcoholism, and appreciates
grace and freedom on a whole new level. |
 Finding
Neverland is a film that satisfies both the taste
and the appetite. Beyond a fantastic cast, excellent costumes and
set, and an exceptional script, this movie’s thematic development
speaks volumes about life, death, hope, imagination and responsibility.
I had the distinct privilege of interviewing screenwriter David
Magee and learning from him many additional insights into the movie.
Thank you, David, for your time!
—Review
continued here
|
 Review
by MATTHEW HILL
Matthew
teaches 7th-8th grade Reading at North
Saginaw Charter Academy in Michigan, where he lives with his wife
and daughter (Laura and Grace). Besides torturing adolescents, Matt's
into reading, writing, playing in his church's praise band, pursuing
his MA in Communications and Multimedia, trying to get his novel published,
"working on his screenplay" (fooling around online), and
living out/thinking about the Christian life-particularly as it connects
to popular culture. |
 Beautiful.
Poignant. Magical. I keep running words through my head that will
describe this movie. Meaningful? Yes. Quiet? Yes, it was quiet—if
that word can be used for a movie. Really, it was so quiet, I swear
that a fellow audience member gave me one of those half-smile-half-nods
that people do at funerals as we were walking out. As though we had
just watched a two hour-long eulogy—which, in a way, we had.
Finding Neverland is about death, after
all. But mostly, it’s about life after death (in more than one
sense). It’s about growing up, and learning how to deal with
death and the other sad things that life brings. And, according to
this film, learning how to do that is all about learning to believe.
As
a piece of filmmaking, Finding Neverland
works very much like another great movie, Shakespeare in Love. We
get a “behind the scenes” look at J.M. Barrie, as he
is writing his play Peter Pan. It turns out, the inspiration for
his story comes largely from a recently widowed mother and her four
sons, whom Barrie befriends. As the movie unfolds, we see how the
real people in the playwright's life become beloved characters in
the play, much like we all tend to look at our lives as stories.
But by the end, the four boys—now the “Lost Boys of
Neverland”—have to learn to deal with yet another death
in their lives. But also by the end, the insight, or remedy, or
realization needed to cope with such things is in place. And the
remedy is . . . believe. So says Johnny Depp—who gives yet
another brilliant performance, by the way—to young Peter,
one of the boys.
Assuming
that this advice is for all of us, what exactly are we to believe
in? Are we to believe in fairies, as the actual play’s ending
encourages us to do? Are we to believe in Barrie’s Neverland,
as the boys’ mother learns to do? Well, kind of—but
I think there’s more to it than that. If we were to just believe
in those things, specifically, we’d be believing only in figments.
No matter how hard one believes in fairies—when a loved one
dies, a loved one dies. As brightly as it is portrayed in this movie,
there is no Neverland to flee to.
But
we can believe—I hope Barrie would agree—in something
above, beyond, outside this world of calamity. An otherworldly something
that somehow makes everything all right. A something that reveals
things to be simple and good, as they are supposed to be for children.
A something, also, of imagination and adventure, that makes simple
things take on fuller, and somehow more true meanings. Taken in
this sense, there can be a Neverland to believe in. And this Neverland—even
just the consciousness of it—can make a difference when the
“real world” presses in.
The
spiritual implications aren’t hard to see. Many people feel
that the Christian story is just a fairy tale, like Peter Pan. In
many ways, it is. Jesus claimed to come, like Peter Pan, from another
world. Like Peter, Jesus will live forever, unchanging. Like Peter,
Jesus calls people from the “real world” into his world
of adventure, where we must “become as little children”
and believe. Jesus has a nemesis, as Peter does. Jesus is self-sacrificial,
as Peter is. Correlations could be multiplied.
And,
of course, the Christian story isn’t like the story of Peter
Pan alone—it’s like many fairy tales. This comparison
might seem to weigh against it. Why not believe in Peter Pan instead
of Jesus, then? Why not believe in Neverland instead of Heaven or
the Kingdom of God? Well, as another author for children, C.S. Lewis,
put it: “the heart of Christianity is a myth [read: fairy
tale] which is also a fact.” No one claims that Barrie’s
fairy tale is true, but many claim that the Bible’s is. No
one has claimed to have met Peter Pan, but many have claimed to
have met Christ. That’s the difference. Besides, if the story
of the universe really turns out to be this Christian fairy tale,
it shouldn’t surprise us when echoes of it pop up in our own
fairy tales.
This
is why Finding Neverland, though quiet,
is so exciting to me—it makes us consider the riskiness, yet
wonder of believing in fantasy. Imagine: what if simply believing
could have that much power? What if there really were someone like
Peter Pan? What if there were magic like this? What if we didn’t
let the serious business of “being an adult” interfere
with our childlike sense that there’s more to the world than
it lets on? What if my life could be a great, meaningful adventure?
What if, in the end, the fairy tales were true? What if I believed,
like Barrie said to? |
 Review By
DARREL MANSON BLOG
Pastor,
Artesia Christian Church, Artesia, CA
http://netministries.org/see/churches/ch01198
Darrel has an incredible love and interest in the cinematic arts.
His reviews usually include independent and significantly important
film. |
 The
story of Peter Pan has become one of the most loved children’s
stories. It captures something of the essence of childhood imagination
and innocence. For children, Peter Pan is a celebration of the fantastic.
For adults it is a reminder of a simpler life we have left behind,
but for which we occasionally yearn. It is also a story that calls
us all, young and old, to believe in things beyond our reality.
Peter Pan is a gift from the pen of author and playwright James
M. Barrie nearly a century ago. Now, in Finding Neverland,
we not only get a glimpse of the Peter Pan story, but also discover
the man behind the story.
—Continued
|
|
I've often wondered why many of the best films quality-wise are also some of the worst content-wise. The films of Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan blend brilliant cinematography and story structure with gratuitous language and violence. Conversely, the films that boast wholesomeness and "good, clean, family fun" tend to be cliched, poorly-acted and melodramatic. Is it so wrong to ask for maturity without "mature themes" or intellectual stimulation without sexual stimulation? Imagine A Beautiful Mind without the intense sense of despair, or Shakespeare in Love without the sexually-charged relationship and you've got the overall feel of Finding Neverland.
—Continued |
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