Finding Neverland

I saw 'Finding Neverland' last year for the first time and have watched it everytime I have had a chance to since. In many ways, the movie reflected some of my own hidden emotions and ethoes to an extent that I am compelled to document it today.

The cast :
SIR J. M. BARRIE - Johnny Depp
SYLVIA LLEWELYN DAVIES - Kate Winslet
CHARLES FROHMAN - Dustin Hoffman
MARY ANSELL BARRIE - Radha Mitchell
PETER DAVIES - Freddie Highmore


Set in 1904, Finding Neverland is modelled around Sir. J.M. Barrie, the creator of such immortal classics as Peter Pan and Captain Hook. One of his plays fails on opening night, much to the chagrin of his financer Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman). Caught between his search for that one magical play and his failed marriage with Mary Ansell Barrie (Radha Mitchell), Barrie escapes the vagaries of the world by taking his dog out to walks in the park.

Barrie finds solace in the time he spends with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), a high society widow, struggling to raise four sons in a still prejudiced society. The children, bereaved by their fathers' death, endear themselves to Barrie except for the youngest - Peter Davies (Freddie Highmore), who takes his time to open up to a stranger after his fathers death.

Barrie spends more and more time with the children and the widow, playing imaginary games with them, on imaginary ships, with imaginary pirates and imaginary animals. The time he spends with them acts as an escape for him from the seemingly material world and leads to his most immortal creation - Peter Pan.

Johnny Depp as Sir. Barrie is a revelation. Be it the dignity with which he tries to shut himself from his loveless marriage, the games he plays with the children or his silent love for the ailing Sylvia, he seems the very embodiment of the melancholic - forlorn writer.

The moment Sir Barrie conceptualizes Peter Pan - when he visualizes the children magically rising up into mid air, transports one into ones own magical childhood.

When Sylvia dies and Peter, with a tear in his eyes, asks Sir. Barrie "Why did she have to die?" and Barrie replies - "I don't know that boy", is perhaps the most heart wrenching moment in the movie.

Be it Sylvia's vehement denial of her illness, Barrie taking her into the imaginary 'Neverland', or the forced maturity of Peter after the loss of his father and then his mother, Finding Neverland is a treat to the aesthetic mind.

Mairaj Zindran