Finding Neverland is an adventure into the mind of playwright, J.M. Barry, author of the play Peter Pan. It is an excellent movie that enchants the audience and leaves you with a good feeling. The plot of the play does differ from the actual life of J.M. Barrie in a few ways. J.M. Barrie’s ‘friendship’ with the widow, Sylvia Davis, was not as plutonic as represented on screen, nor was she a widow when she and Barrie first met. Another small change in the plot was the Davis children themselves, who Barrie used as models for his lost boys. In reality, there were actually five Davis boys, not four. These minor details should not take away from the overall excellence of this movie. Professor Avery of the English department has been recommending this movie to students all semester. “I enjoyed Finding Neverland very much; Johnny Depp plays J. M. Barrie in a delightfully understated way, and the film overall explores very successfully the tensions between real and imagined life that Barrie examines in his play and novel about Peter Pan.”

The problem with the movie is that it was only released in select theatres for the last few weeks. It also did not seem to be widely promoted. Students at UML said that they had heard the title of the movie before, but did not know anything about it. There was no interest in the movie because of the lack of information. It is sad that most students will be able to tell you the plot of The Incredibles, a Disney-Pixar movie aimed at children, yet have barely heard of Neverland. I urge students to go and see this charming movie. The acting is excellent, Johnny Depp gives another stellar performance, Kate Winslett is wonderful, and the child actors are brilliantly funny and heart-warming. The cinematography is unique; when the movie goes into Barrie’s mind, the scene is painted with props from theatre sets, not the computer animation that you see in every movie. The viewer can see ideas happening in Barrie’s mind as he thinks of them. One particular example of that is when Barrie is looking at the “Evil” grandmother of the Davis boys. While she is chiding the boys she is holding a coat hanger in her hand, pointing the hook at each boy. Barrie sees her in a captain’s costume, thus, his idea for Captain Hook. That is just one of the many creative twists in the movie. If you are craving a movie that is not just the same old thing, go see Finding  Neverland. The film opened up Thanksgiving Day weekend nation wide; it is one of few movies worth the $10 ticket this holiday season.