FINDING NEVERLAND
Wednesday, June 1

FINDING NEVERLAND




When I first heard about this movie, I thought it would suck. I hardly remembered the story of Peter Pan to begin with, so surely a movie about Peter Pan himself would be better than a movie about the author.

After seeing the movie a second time with my brother david on dvd, we mused, imagine how difficult it must have been to pitch the idea of this movie to the studios. mr. studio, the movie is about the mr. barrie, the man who wrote peter pan. he's going to meet some boys and their widowed mother, play imagined games with them, fall in love with the dying mother, and then, at the peak of the movie, they'll actually really SEE neverland!

it sounds crazy, and with good reason: apparently, 50, yes, FIFTY directors passed on making this movie.

yet, amazingly, the movie flows well. in fact, we had to agree that it was nearly seamless and extremely well made.

confession: when i first saw the movie with esther, i teared a bit through several scenes. even weirder, i continued to tear a good bit even after the movie was over. (it was an odd, post-TITANIC-like feeling (c'mon, everyone teared during the titanic. don't even try denying it)). it was so odd to me that it made me think, what was so tear-jerking about this movie?

it's a movie about Peter PAN, for goodness sake. it should be a HAPPY movie. but it was an extremely heavy, heavy, depressing movie. some depressing things i've had to recall to justify the tears:

1) the most obvious, but least meaningful: the mother (kate winslet) dies at the end.

2) there is no evil person in this movie. the fact is, everyone wants to do what is good and right. it's terribly sad to see how everyone gets hurt by such good intentions.

       a) kate's mom wants to preserve her daughter's reputation and raise the boys properly, as best as she knows, and somehow the result is to kill whatever joy her daughter might enjoy.

       b) johnny depp wants to spend time with the woman and boys that he loves, and manages to conduct himself with perfect behavior (really perfect. in this movie, one can truly understand what it means to be a gentle-man.), and somehow the result is to sully and tarnish kate's reputation, and also gain the implied reputation of a child molester.

       c) kate hopes to raise the boys well, but desperately needs help. unfortunately, she's dying, she's helpless, she's helpless to ask for help because charity is the worst thing in the world, and she wants just to be with the man she loves, reputation be damned.

       d) depp's wife married a man that she KNOWS is wonderful, creative, kind, gentle, all these great things, but he is at his best when he is away from her. he is at his best when he is in Neverland, a special place that he introduces kate and the boys to so easily, a special place that he never opened to her. a special place that she knows exists only because it is revealed in a glorious triumphant manner to the world, and only because she is part of the world.

       e) peter wants to live, play, enjoy things as the other boys do, but he can't. in fact, his father has just passed away, and it seems as though everyone, including his mother, has forgotten his father. and here is this bastard stranger, trying to take his father's place.

3) depp shares to kate: "when i was a boy, my older brother, david, died. my mother loved him very much, so when he died, she fell to pieces. finally, this went on so long that one day, i dressed in my brother's clothes and went to her. for that first time, i felt like she was truly seeing me."

imagining this scene breaks my heart. imagine this boy, dressed like his older brother that his mother loved so much. imagine him seeing that special love in his mother's eyes for the first time, feeling like she was SEEING him. feeling that joy/exhilaration of that special love. feeling that it was for him. except that, of course, she was actually imagining/seeing his brother.

4) the marriage of the barries. how could two people who love each other hurt each other so much inadvertently? this relationship is truly painful to watch. it makes me fear marriage, actually.

5) tinkerbell dies. is this part of the original story?! kids shouldn't be exposed to this kind of stuff. it's too much. the final straw on the camel's back.

david says that this movie is heavy and depressing because it is REALITY. ironic, since it's also a movie about imagination, and one of the main characters actually goes walking off into Neverland. but david is right.

somewhere in the back of my mind, i am trying to grasp at the deeper meanings of this movie, other than the heavy, depressing aspects. it skips and flits about, just out of my reach, just a tad faster than i can see.

yakob at 2:50 AM

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