Finding Peter Pan

No matter what your age, there is always a moment when you feel like a kid again. The feeling is exhilarating, and you try to remember a time when life was simpler. Through the eyes of a child though, life may not seem simple. Things may not be exactly how you may want them, and you may miss out on some of the joys of being young. This may be why rediscovering your youth, as an adult can be such an interesting experience.

This line between adulthood and childhood is explored in Finding Neverland, an adaptation of the play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan”. The story tells about the life of author and playwright, J.M. Barrie and is based on the true events of the writer’s life although creative liberties were taken.

The film follows Barrie who is played by Johnny Depp. Barrie’s journey really starts when he is introduced to the Llewelyn Davies children one afternoon in the park as he was writing. He begins to play with them and in turn, his inner child comes out to play.

As Barrie begins to interact with Jack, George, Michael, and most importantly, Peter Llewelyn Davies, he teaches them to open their imaginations. The camera allows the audience to see how Uncle Jim (Barrie) uses his imagination as he interacts with the children, taking them on wild western adventures, pirate ships, and showing them how to dance with a bear, all in a place called Neverland. When seeing Barrie in Neverland, the audience is juxtaposed from what is actually happening, to the fantasy in which visual representation is given.

The film goes deeper than just child’s play though. Through the time that Barrie spends with the children, he develops an “inappropriate relationship” with their widowed mother, Sylvia, played by academy award winning actress Kate Winslet. Through the looking glass, everyone becomes suspicious of their relationship, including Sylvia’s mother and Barrie’s own wife. Barrie is even told by a friend at the cricket club that it seems his relationship extends further than just with Sylvia, but with the children as well.

Through the development of the relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, comes the struggle that Barrie faces in his life, does he have to please others or just himself. In essence, I think he does both. Through the relationship that he forms with the family, he finds happiness and pleases himself. Consequently, this brings joy to the mourning Llewelyn Davies family and his fans at the theater with his newly inspired play “Peter Pan.”

Although the film does not have a very happy ending, there is a powerful lesson in the film about happiness. At the climax of the film, when Barrie is premiering his new play, “Peter Pan” he does not care what people think of it as he did in the opening scene of the film, instead he is concerned about what it means to a small group of people, the people who inspired it. He goes as far as having the play reenacted for them, finally showing Sylvia Neverland as he had promised her.

Throughout the film, Marc Foster, the director uses his characters in two worlds, one reality and one fantasy. The blend showing how Barrie perceived reality was a very nice visual effect and also added depth to the character development. The use of these fantasies left you wondering how grown up is J.M. Barrie.

In some parts of the film, you could see that he is clearly an adult. When he encounters Peter, a middle child of Llewelyn Davies family, he steps up to the role of becoming a father figure. Although Peter does resist, Barrie is able to easily grip with it, as he is the adult.

In other instances though, Barrie acts like a child. At a dinner where he and his wife invite the Llewelyn Davies family over because Barrie’s wife wanted to meet Sylvia’s mother, a socialite, Barrie is seen leading the children putting spoons on his nose. His wife responds by yelling at him like he is a child. Later, he states how he believed the evening to be a success. His wife on the other hand did not believe the evening to be successful for their social life at all.

Overall, the film has many layers that help to make this a meaningful film. Although some of the dialogue may be dry at points, Marc Foster had it in there for a reason and I appreciate that. The director though did create a dry film. Telling this story mostly from the perspective of J.M. Barrie, the audience is able to actually see how he is seeing things, welcoming them into his world of Neverland and showing when he is there.

The most interesting character of the film though was not Johnny Depp’s character, but the little boy Peter Llewelyn Davies. Peter, is a bipolar character that acts as a catalyst of the whole story. He takes an interest in Barrie, but also is able to push him away. Through Peter, Barrie realizes how important it is to be a child and how fragile they are, especially when they feel they are lied to or are mourning.

Finding Neverland is a film that we do not see made that much anymore. It shows some true emotions and human interaction. It focuses on the emotion and not the action. Through seeing this it is possible to take a different perspective on life and appreciate the people you have in it. I think that if we were all to be a little more like Barrie, and find our own Neverland, the world would be a much happier and creative place.