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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 3840
Released: March 22, 2005 |
| Our Price: $3.65 |
| Used Price: $1.49 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Award winners Johnny Depp (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL), Kate Winslet (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND), Dustin Hoffman, and Julie Christie (TROY, HAMLET) star in this magical tale about one of the world's greatest storytellers and the people who inspired his masterwork "Peter Pan." Well-known playwright James M. Barrie (Depp) finds his career at a crossroads when his latest play flops and doubters question his future. Then by chance he meets a widow (Winslet) and her four adventurous boys. Together they form a friendship that ignites the imagination needed to produce Barrie's greatest work! An enchanting big-screen treat with an acclaimed cast of stars, FINDING NEVERLAND has been hailed as one of the year's best motion pictures!
Description of Finding Neverland (Widescreen Edition):
Sweetness that doesn't turn saccharine is hard to find these days; Finding Neverland hits the mark. Much credit is due to the actors: Johnny Depp applies his genius for sly whimsy in his portrayal of playwright J. M. Barrie, who finds inspiration for his greatest creation from four lively boys, the sons of widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet, who miraculously fuses romantic yearning with common sense). Though the friendship threatens his already dwindling marriage, Barrie spends endless hours with the boys, pretending to be pirates or Indians--and gradually the elements of Peter Pan take shape in his mind. The relationship between Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family sparks both an imagined world and a quiet rebellion against the stuffy forces of respectability, given physical form by Barrie's resentful wife (Radha Mitchell, High Art) and Sylvia's mother (Julie Christie, McCabe and Mrs. Miller). This gentle silliness could have turned to treacle, but Depp and Winslet--along with newcomer Freddie Highmore as one of the boys--keep their feet on the earth while their eyes gaze into their dreams. Also featuring a comically crusty turn from Dustin Hoffman (who appeared in another Peter Pan-themed movie, Hook) as a long-suffering theater producer. --Bret Fetzer
Finding Neverland (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Very moving film 
2009-10-27 - This is a moving film about the events of our lives shaping us and sometimes inspiring us to do some wonderful things. Triumph out of tragedy.
Enchanting and funny
2009-08-25 - I bought this dvd a couple of months ago, but didn't watch it until last weekend, twice. I waited so long to watch it because I thought this movie was all computer generated graphics and star dust, a movie best experienced with one's brain running at idle. Was I wrong.
This movie is engaging, enchanting, and funny. You will laugh and cry with the characters as their lives unfold. The production is set in 1903 England and is said to be based on real events.
The movie is about the goings-on in the life of the playwriter, James Barrie when he wrote "Peter Pan". A man who is about 30 going on 13, who would rather clown-it-up at the formal dinner table with his new pre-pubescent friends than engage his socialite wife and her new social contact.
All the female costars ooze both beauty and talent. The children can act beyond their years. I'm just going to say this is a must see for everyone from 5 on up.
Looks Great!
2009-08-22 - My Mom's birthday is in a couple months and I decided to suprise her with a few mvoies starring Johnny Depp. Let's just say she has a HUGE crush on him! I'm searching for a few movies I would like to buy and this is definitley going to be added to my shopping cart! My Mom loves magical kinds of movies and well Johnny Depp. She wants to have a collection of Johnny movies and this would be perfect! I can't wait to watch it myself! Bot to mention, Kate Winslet. She is an amazing actress and any movie she is in that I seen was fantastic!
Finding Neverland
2009-08-06 - DVD was in perfect condition, and recieved on time! Would definitely recommend this sender 100%
johnny depp outacted by freddie highmore 
2009-08-04 - This movie is difficult for me to review. Do I review its strengths or its weaknesses? Ironically, Johnny Depp accounts for both.
It should be noted that his name is not John Depp, but Johnny. This seems to be at the heart of his view on art and acting, which is too boyishly handsome and, frankly, not an adult view of the world since, like a boy, Mr. Depp is too idealistic too often. Consequently, here is another example of Mr. Depp portraying the "enlightened oddball" - an outsider who somehow we are suppose to believe has transcended all petty human needs, a modern day "Jesus" if you will. (See "Benny and Joon" from the early 90s to see how consistently he chooses to treat eccentricity as a mask hiding "the perfect man" which he prefers to play).
So, come rain or come shine, which in this case includes the break up of his charater's marriage and the death of the woman his character apparently loves (which is only apparent since Mr. Depp plays his character as having neither sexual nor romantic interest toward either his wife or his new friend, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, presumably because that would be messy and, therefore, too real for Mr. Depp's view on his art), Mr. Depp's Sir Barrie is a man who only sadly nods his head. Otherwise, he is indifferent.
Now, it must be admitted that Mr. Depp has presence and, therefore, he does carry the movie which is not saying little since he is in something like 90 percent of the scenes. In fact, he is very good at playing what my ex-girlfriend called "the pretty man", too noble to soil himself with human emotions but too beautiful for most women to care about such passivity and forced otherworldliness. Being a guy, I find Mr. Depp to be a solid actor who takes the easy choices and, therefore, is often boring to watch and never has anything interesting to say about actual life versus ideal life.
Which leads me to the reason I chose to write this review. Freddie Highmore.
Now, here is an actor! Whereas Mr. Depp chose to act above it all and indifferent to the lose of the woman his character supposedly loved, albeit "beautifully" indifferent; Mr. Highmore easily and deeply shows the pain and confusion and, yes, the ugliness of losing a loved one. So, at the tender age of twelve, he shows himself to be a vastly superior actor to Mr. Depp.
So, watch the movie to see solid star acting by Johnny Depp (which generally means choosing to play an idealized noble version of the character) and to see solid realistic acting by Freddie Highmore and, to a lesser extent, by Kate Winslet. These latter two are the heart of this movie and it just prattles along whenever they are not in a scene.
As to the story, it is adequate. Not that interesting to either dissect or describe. One thing I did not like, however, was the fact that it is Barrie who begins seeing another person and who actively disrespects his wife and her place in society (allegedly in a pre-adolescent virginal way by the film's take) but it is his wife who is subtly portrayed as the person who betrayed the marriage. Apparently, we are suppose to see her as selfish because she wanted a husband rather than a pie-in-the-sky manboy who preferred spending his time, albeit "innocently", with another woman in public.
I guess if you act like a boy toward your woman even though you are a full grown man, you cannot be held accountable as a man for your woman's pain and eventual indifference to the very marriage which you abandoned by placing your own needs above both hers and the marriage. While that may be true in the neverland of this movie, it is not true in the real world.
With these moral qualms aside, it is an entertaining movie all in all and I would recommend renting it.
