Finding Neverland: It Will Always Be There If You Just Believe

All children, except one, grow up. These immortal words by J.M. Barrie begin one of the most famous children's stories ever written. They are your entree into Neverland, a world filled with pirates and mermaids and boys who fly, a world fueled by pure imagination.

Finding Neverland is the story behind the story, a fictionalized recounting of Barrie's discovery of the Llewelyn Davies family and how they inspired his greatest work. Even more, it is a testament to the power of imagination and how, if you want something enough, you can will it into existence.

It is the story of one man who never really grew up and how he managed to discover the power of facing reality just as he taught the rest of the world how to believe in the impossible.

Finding Neverland is about finding your own place in the world, creating a spot where you fit perfectly even if it goes against what everyone else has planned for you or sees as your proper place. It is about breaking the rules to create something wonderful and accepting the consequences of being different.

It is also about that moment in time when you discover that there are some things that simply cannot be imagined away, that moment when you irrevocably pass from childhood and become an adult. All children grow up, even Scottish authors who spend their time pretending to be gunfighters and Indian chiefs and pirates.

Johnny Depp breathes out magic in this movie. He glows, he enchants, he captivates. This is his movie and everyone else is just along as a foil. The many imaginative scenes of play with the Davies children offer him an opportunity to really showcase his physical comedy and fabulous mannerisms while the rest of the movie affords the opportunity to show off a perfect accent and revealing facial expressions.

Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies is his ostensible costar but she fades into nothingness next to Depp. It's not that she's bad in the role - she isn't - but rather that she lacks Depp's magnetism and screen presence. So does everyone else. Only Nick Roud as George Llewelyn Davies and, at times, Freddie Highmore as Peter Llewelyn Davies come close to competing with him.

The best moments of the film come as you see incidents in the Davies household that serve as inspiration for Peter Pan. As their grandmother (Julie Christie) chastises the children, pushing her finger into their chest for emphasis it crooks and, just for an instant, Barrie visualizes Captain Hook. As the boys jump and frolic on their beds they acquire so much momentum that, just for a second, they seem to be flying. These are little moments, moments of no import that we each experience every day and forget amid thousands of similar minor events. These particular inconsequential moments will never be forgotten.

The worst moments of the film come when the director (Marc Forster) forgets the power of imagination, forgets that it is inside our own minds that we see the most wonderous things of all. When Barrie spins a tale of dancing with a dangerous wild bear as he dances with his dog, we alternate between glossy sparkly circus scenes with the bear and images of the actual dancing. This would have been much more powerful had we been forced to transform dog to bear ourselves just as the children did. What good is a movie about the power of imagination if it spells everything out for us?

Fortunately such moments were few and far between. Most of the time imagination rules and Depp is king of all he surveys. When Finding Neverland ends and the credits roll, you'll find yourself clapping while a young boy watches from the land where no one grows old and revels that you believed and made his dream a reality.