Finding Neverland: Awakening the Inner Child
Immediately after watching Finding Neverland, I found myself engaged in a discussion. I argued that I couldn’t see why the film had been nominated for an Oscar.
While it was only in that film that I realized how cute Johnny Depp was, I did not think the acting was impeccable. Kate Winslet was so-so as the widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, but the child actors were not revelations. Julie Christie impressed with her stern grandmother portrayal, and Dustin Hoffman elicited a few laughs with his cynicism, but that was it for me.
The plot was also nothing to boast of. One could sum it up as the making of Peter Pan, and the scandal that resulted from it. Much was said about James spending more time with Sylvia than with his own wife, but the marital troubles between James and his wife Mary were not quite fleshed out. James displays a certain naiveté about the situation, emphatic that he is just offering friendship to Sylvia and her children. It takes Mrs. Emma du Maurier, Sylvia’s mother, to explain just what the fuss is all about: that the time James spends with the Llewelyn Davies family is time that Sylvia could spend entertaining new suitors. In short, James is making Sylvia less eligible to the other men the more time he spends with her. It is only then that one truly understands the complexities within this friendship, and the problems it is causing for both James and Sylvia.
The only thing I could concede was the production value was amazing. From the clothes to the location, I was most impressed by the Neverland that the film created. I surmised that the film must have been nominated for an Oscar based on its production value.
After my tirade against the film, I was met with, “Didn’t you learn anything?”
My partner then recounted to me the genius of having the children watch the opening night of Peter Pan, and how the adults found their inner child as they joined the children who were already enthralled by the production. I was reminded of the scene between Johnny Depp and Dustin Hoffman after the first play that had flopped, where Depp says, “It wasn’t meant to be taken seriously,” and Hoffman responds, “You know who changed it? The critics.”
It was then that I realized that those two lines held the very essence of appreciating the film Finding Neverland. The film was not about good acting, a tight plot, or a great production. It was about allowing oneself to be immersed in the film, to see through the eyes of a child. It was about stretching the limits of one’s imagination, perhaps in order to see that a dog can actually become a bear, if one puts his mind to it.
In short, the film Finding Neverland is not meant to be seen with the eyes of a critical adult, but with that of an innocent child experiencing life and traveling to Neverland for the very first time.