FINDING NEVERLAND

I was browsing through last-weeks posts and all the mention of Peter Pan and Johnnie Depp put me in mind of another little gem. It is yet another true story, not a very well known story yet a story well worth knowing… It is the true life story of J.M. Barrie, the writer of the novel Peter Pan and the events that inspired the creation of the classic we all know and love today…

Scottish playwright James Barrie (Johnnie Depp * SIGH…* ) has just suffered a dismal failure with his latest play. He is also lacking terribly in inspiration, a condition fed by the depression brought on by his failure… Inspiration comes to him in the surprising form of beautiful and fragile widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four young sons. Barrie turns out to be an excellent playmate and father figure to the boys. He becomes especially close to Peter, one of the younger boys (acted by child prodigy Freddy Highmore). Peter is troubled, misses his father, has an extraordinary imagination and does not want to grow up… Despite criticism from Sylvia’s mother (the multi-award winning Julie Christie) and Mary, Barrie’s wife (acted by Radha Michelle - hmm, I never knew I was such a fan of hers, I seem to write about one of her works every week!!) Barrie spends more and more time with the family. It will inspire him to write his greatest work ever. If he can only convince the producer Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman) it’s a viable business venture that is…

First of all, with such a stellar cast, the film can only be so bad if you see what I mean =) But in fact, director Marc Foster is not to be sneezed at either; his works you may have heard of include Monsters Ball, Stranger than Fiction, The Kite Runner and Quantum Of Solace… This is most definitely a successful work: the film was nominated for a total of 7 Oscars ® including heavyweights such as Best Motion Picture, Best Leading Actor (Johnnie Depp - *SIGH*) and Best Writing. (Ok, so in the end it only won Best Achievement in Music but the other fields were actually worth a mention!!) The film also trails a very long list of nominations for prestigious awards such as Golden Globes and BAFTA’s, so I feel that even those of us who in later years have begun to shy away from mainstream cinema should feel confident to “dip a toe in” so to speak. I mean, come on guys, so many juries, they can’t all be wrong /stupid / corrupt!

And besides, even if you are completely anti mainstream, didn’t you read Peter Pan (or even better, have it read to you, like I did) when you were younger and love it? (And if you didn’t read / have it read to you I am genuinely sorry about that. If you did and didn’t like it, well, chances are you’re reading the wrong blog mate… really…) Ehm, so you did love it, right? Aren’t you just the teensiest bit curious as to what the real Peter Pan was like? I am really sorry to disappoint you guys but he did actually grow up – here’s his Wikipedia page. I always find the real stories behind these great works fascinating (same with the extraordinary life story of Lewis Carrol and his creation of Alice in Wonderland for instance). Maybe it’s this fact that endears the film so much to me. It is still a beautiful, touching film.