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	Finding Neverland
	Marc Forster Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Dustin Hoffman, Nick Roud, Radha Mitchell, Joe Prospero, Freddie Highmore, Luke Spill, Kelly Macdonald, Kate Maberly, Ian Hart 2004		It purports to tell the story behind the invention of one of the world's most popular, beloved fictional characters: Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. But "Finding Neverland" is more properly an affecting, heavily dramatized, somewhat fictionalized biographical sketch of a period in the life of Peter's creator, British author and playwright J. M. Barrie. Crucial to the film's success is the delicate performance of Johnny Depp as Barrie, a man whose literary achievements can't dull the ache he feels in a loveless marriage until he meets Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, a widow with a troop of sons in need of kindness and playful attention. The Davies kids and their mother enchant Barrie, although many of his peers disapprove. In time, those boys — and their need to embrace the joys of childhood — become the inspiration for "Peter Pan." Directed for maximum emotional impact by Marc Forster ("Monster's Ball"), the movie benefits from a sumptuous recreation of Victorian high society and the London theater scene, Barrie's main habitats. In the end though, it's Depp, Kate Winslet as Sylvia, Julie Christie as her disapproving mother and the tyro actors playing Sylvia's sons that make "Finding Neverland" a satisfying, eventually weepy voyage. If liberties are taken with the truth (Sylvia was not widowed when Barrie first met her), so be it. With Dustin Hoffman as a harried theater impresario.


	Sunday, November 17, 2024





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