Johnny Depp: 'finding Neverland'

[Luke_Wilbur]

"Finding Neverland" is the story of a man who doesn't want to grow up, and writes the story of a boy who never does. The boy is Peter Pan, and the man is Sir J.M. Barrie, who wrote his famous play after falling under the spell of a widow and her four young boys. That Barrie was married at the time, that he all but ignored his wife, that he all but moved into the widow's home, that his interest in the boys raised little suspicion, would make this story play very differently today. Johnny Depp's performance makes Barrie not only believable, but acceptable. And he does it without evading the implications of his behavior: The movie doesn't inoculate Barrie as a "family friend," but shows him truly and deeply in love with the widow and her boys, although in an asexual way; we wonder, indeed, if this man has ever had sex, or ever wants to.

 

Depp was drawn to the role of Barrie because he could identify with the author's insistence on staying in touch with his childlike imagination. Barrie "only felt comfortable when he was hanging around with kids for the pure reason that there were no ulterior motives," Depp says. "Kids didn't have any agenda... They just behaved and they were pure and honest and he was kind of obsessed with that."

 

I walked out of the Georgetown Theater with sore eyes. This movie is a must see.