Finding Neverland

Cast: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Radha Mitchel, Director: Marc Froster, Music: Jan AP Kaczmarek

I didn't know Marc Froster is Finding Neverland's director. When I came to know, I couldn't hide my excitement and the expectation shot sky high. Then I read Swati's review. Then I saw the movie.

Everyone knows the story of Finding Neverlad and if not, there's IMDB or the official Web site to source it from.

I want to particularly write on the deliberately underplayed tone and performances in the film. You'll almost forget Johnny Depp's presence in the movie till in the last scene, when he whispers 'This is Neverland' into Winslet's ears. Such a mind numbing underplay of performance is something quite novel even in Hollywood standards and has become one of Marc Frostman's trademarks. Remember Halle Berry's smile that defined the climax in Monster's Ball. Froster apparently believes in very subtle and very minute play of emotions in his productions.

But if Berry's smile was one of its kind (that fetched her the well-deserved Oscar), Neverland is full of such nuances. As the movie slowly unfolds and as the crucial story-twisting sequences pass you by without any hint, you wonder if Froster really has the intention of telling you the story. Even the scene that defines J B Barrie's struggle due to ignored childhood is so casually narrated, it's easy to miss.

The movie progressess towards the typical Shakespeare in Love ending, and you know that the Peter Pan staging is going to be successful. Yet, you don't expect what lies in store when Barrie slowly carries Ms. Davies downstairs. And then when the scene unfolds, you can't help but explode into tears and watch so affectionately and helplessly as the children (and Ms. Davies' mother too) clap in a desperate hurry. You almost feel like opening the window flying away yourself.

The magical and enormously filling moment transforms into a very poignant and almost philosophical (and an expected) shift. In the end, When Barrie tells Peter to 'Believe', we too believe with Peter. Frostman knows well not to show Ms. Davies on the horizon. Because we see his mother along with Peter, it's unncessary to show her out there.

Finding Neverland will go down to become one of the most important movie of the year. It's subtlety, deliberate downplay, mixing vivid imaginations with grim reality, shifting boyhood with maturity and not to leave out the superb (Oscar winning) background score will leave you asking for more.

And now that Marc Froster has become my favorite director, I have no doubt that Stay, his next offering, will be far more fulfilling.