Bring a big box of mansize tissues to this engaging film about the author of Peter Pan, advises Donald Clarke
Marc Forster's diverting engagement with some aspects of the creation of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan does, in common with many other such cinematic treatments of the creative process, have rather too many scenes in which the hero catches glimpses of people and things which will inspire his work. We get to see evil old crone Julie Christie adopting the posture of Captain Hook. Elsewhere a friendly St Bernard reminds us of Nana. Johnny Depp's Barrie doesn't quite catch a glimpse of a crocodile ambling across Regent's Park, but one suspects it was a close-run thing.
Happily, neither these too-frequent outbreaks of clumsy foreshadowing nor the compromises made with the facts (Barrie family members have whinged) do much to hinder the picture's success as a manipulator of tear ducts. The final scenes of Finding Neverland will, if they work for you at all, produce something more dramatic than sobbing - they will produce noisy heaves for breath, Halle Berryesque torrents of snot and, quite possibly, the rending of garments. Forget tissues, bring a towel.
The film focuses on the relationship between Barrie, unhappily married at the time, and the young widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), the daughter of the writer George Du Maurier. Barrie bumps into Sylvia one day while walking through the park and becomes friends with both her and her four sons. Gossip abounds that the writer may be having either an inappropriate relationship with the widow or several even more inappropriate ones with her children. But, this being as cosy and chaste a film as you could hope (or dread) to see, nobody does anything he or she shouldn't.
Casting two of the prettiest actors on the planet as the not-quite-romantic leads pushes the film into fantasy territory even before we get to see sequences from Peter Pan acted out. This is deeply sentimental entertainment, totally untouched by any contemporary ugliness (not at all the sort of film one might expect from the director of Monster's Ball) and, as such, it requires something of a leap of faith from cynical viewers. Those unable to get fully on board may still enjoy a playful performance by Depp, whose Scottish accent is, strangely, infinitely superior to the various English ones he has butchered down through the years. And nobody should be able to resist young Freddie Highmore - to be seen next year with Depp in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - as Peter Llewelyn Davies.
Had Forster chosen to let us know that the real Peter grew up to commit suicide and that one of his brothers died in the first World War, those last few scenes would have become quite unbearable.
