Peter Panache

The film itself is pretty and sweet but a tad soggy, perhaps from steeping in its own juices for a couple of years' worth of title changes and marketing strategies while other Peter Pan products and Wacko Jacko-brand Neverland business blew through the public consciousness. It's actually a peculiarly innocent and subtle project for director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Everything Put Together). In adapting Allan Knee's play The Man Who Was Peter Pan, Forster indulges in broad, maudlin melodrama. But gradually, he rises from the plentiful syrup to deliver touching poetry.

Is Finding Neverland an accurate biographical account of the life of Barrie? Hardly. But don't hold that against it. Think of this as a fantasia upon reality, Barrie's stock-in-trade. We first meet him in London, circa 1903, nervously gauging audience reactions to his latest play. His curmudgeonly benefactor, Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman), is enthusiastic; the public's response is not. Barrie and his wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell), ride the torpor, but it's obvious that the famous writer requires fresh inspiration.

In short order, Kate Winslet and a gaggle of cute little boys show up in Kensington Gardens just in time to adore Depp dancing with a large St. Bernard as if it were a circus bear. Winslet plays the widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, who suddenly finds her four boys (Joe Prospero, Nicholas Roud, Luke Spill and, as Peter, Freddie Highmore) the objects of Barrie's affection -- and the sources of his inspiration for Peter Pan. Fact goes out the window -- Sylvia's husband actually knew Barrie for a few years before dying, and there were only three boys when Barrie introduced himself -- but the fiction is undeniably charming.

As the boys' overprotective grandmother, still-sexy Julie Christie shows up to give Barrie some hell, but mainly she's just irritable (perhaps because she does not change clothes once over a period of several months). Adding friction, Mary realizes that her husband's passions lay elsewhere and takes up with another writer. Then there's Sylvia. Winslet is strangely steely and far removed from the "other world" she visited in Heavenly Creatures, but as tragedy looms, her character's connection with Barrie and his fairies becomes quite poignant.

The crux, of course, is the love of the lads, particularly Peter (Highmore is terrific and will return, with Depp, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). In more lurid hands, the film might have sensationalized Barrie's attraction to the boys, but although most of them grew up to meet tragic ends, his desire for their company has been reported across the board as chaste and true. (What may have occurred could be called "Christopher Robin Syndrome," as the son of A.A. Milne felt his childhood was stolen by his father to launch the Winnie the Pooh phenomenon.) The film addresses Barrie's own ruined childhood; his urge to reconnect to the whimsy of youth could ring true for many lost boys in the audience.

Does anyone actually find Neverland? Yes -- and these days at the movies, we couldn't ask for a better guide than Depp.