Cinema Tuesdays Review

Never Could You Imagine
By Nathan Cone

Full disclosure: I am now related by marriage to a person involved with the making of “Finding Neverland,” and the film’s sole Oscar winner at that. On Oscar Night 2005, my wife and I hosted a small group of friends at our home. Immediately after Jan A.P. Kaczmarek won an Oscar for Best Original Score for “Finding Neverland,” I told my wife Renata, “I’ll bet we get a call from your dad since the winner is Polish.” Sure enough, not 30 seconds after Kaczmarek left the stage, the phone rang. Renata answered, and soon after, her eyes widened. “That’s my mom’s cousin!” she exclaimed. She never knew! All of us erupted in shocked laughter. Although the two have not stayed in touch, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek is my mother-in-law’s cousin. What a small world we live in!

With that out of the way, I will refrain from discussing the wonderful, melodic, highly effective score written by the gifted and talented composer Mr. Kaczmarek. There, the slate is clean.

The marketing tag line for “Finding Neverland” was “Where does imagination come from?” Apparently for playwright J.M. Barrie, it came from his friendship with the Davies family, and especially young Peter Davies, who in the film is already too grown up for his own good. The film is based on fact, but like many films inspired by a true story, it strays away from the truth at times, fudging dates and some characters. But as director Marc Forster explains on the commentary track that accompanies this DVD release of the film, it was never the filmmakers’ intention to craft a true tale of how Barrie came to write “Peter Pan.” Instead, “Finding Neverland” is about keeping sense of childhood whimsy within you throughout life -- even into adulthood.

Screenwriter David Magee does an excellent job with J.M. Barrie’s character, making him sympathetic to the audience even while he neglects his marriage in favor of spending afternoons with the Davies boys. Johnny Depp pulls off another great performance. He is one of a handful of actors working today that loses himself so completely in a character that you tend to forget it’s Depp onscreen. His scenes with the young Freddie Highmore, as Peter Davies, are genuinely touching. Again, the DVD commentary track reveals more insights, as director Forster and producer Richard Gladstein were frankly astonished at how good an actor young Highmore became once the cameras started rolling.

Supporting performances by Julie Christie and Kate Winslet are well done, an Dustin Hoffmann brings some wry humor to his role as the impresario of a theater where Barrie’s plays have been largely flopping.

The DVD’s bonus features include the aforementioned commentary, and a short “making of” featurette. Three deleted scenes are genuinely interesting. In one, Barrie is asked by one of the Davies boys why he never had any children. “I guess it’s because only grown-ups can have children,” he answers.

A clip of special effects from the film is really too short to amount to much, and outtakes/bloopers from the film are pretty useless, but the commentary track by Forster, Gladstein, and writer David Magee is informative, and even seems to be recorded in real-time, not pasted together from interviews conducted outside the screening room. Gladstein and Magee’s cell phones even ring during the session!

Visually, the film’s transfer to the DVD format seems to suffer a bit from when I saw it in the theater. Colors seem a bit more muted on home video. The 5.1 Surround Sound mix is, appropriately enough, not overpowering.

“Finding Neverland,” nominated for Best Picture this past year, is a sweet film that deftly blends fantasy and reality. Between Depp’s and Highmore’s performance, I can easily recommend the movie. Plus, the music was pretty good. And that’s my - ahem - unbiased opinion.

3/28/2005

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