[Film] Finding Neverland

I wonder how many people who saw the movie have actually read or re-read Peter Pan while they were adults and how many of them have known anything about the real life of J. M. Barrie before the movie. I'm not an expert on Barrie, but I do know a bit about him and had to re-read Peter Pan for my Children's Lit class, so I can tell you the film version of Barrie and Peter Pan is mostly imaginary. What irks me mostly about the movie is its inaccurate portrayal of historically real persons and real events and yet it presents itself to be semi-biographical (for a very nice article on Barrie and Peter Pan, go here: "Lost Boys"). This Disney-esq version of Barrie's life and the birth of Peter Pan is also full of corny sentimentalism and predictable clichés. It's a tear-jerker all right, but the emotion stays on the surface; there is no revelation and no depth. It is easy to swallow and even easier to forget. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't find Johnny Depp's performance particularly memorable in this film although his Scottish accent is impressive (to me anyway). The rest of the cast is OK, but the corny dialogues were too distracting for me to pay attention to the acting.

"Finding Neverland" is an average film that might be entertaining if one goes for that sort of thing. It is sad though that you just know many are going to walk away from the film thinking THAT was what really happened historically. J. M. Barrie, in the end, meets the same fate as his Peter Pan, whose pop culture image has long replaced the real thing.

5/10