February 13, 2007

Finding Neverland (2004)
Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Allan Knee and David Magee
Starring: Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet
Co-Starring: Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, Dustin Hoffman, and Freddie Highmore
Description: London, 1903: four lads, three women, and J.M. Barrie in the year he writes "Peter Pan." After one of his plays flops, Barrie meets four boys and their widowed mother in the park. During the next months, the child-like Barrie plays with the boys daily, and their imaginative games give him ideas for a play. Simultaneously, a friendship deepens with Sylvia, the lads' mother, to the chagrin of his wife Mary, with whom he spends little time (separate bedrooms), the widow's mother, and high society, which gossips about his attraction to the widow and to her sons. As Sylvia's health worsens, Barrie's ties to the boys strengthen and he must find a way to take his muse to Neverland.
Rating: B
In a word... otherworldly.