Imagination is the reflection of the reality in its elemental way of displaying sorrow and happiness. We employ this kind of technique while attending a boring lecture. Kidding. Well no, of course I used this technique to pass on those terrible lectures. Imagination is the seed of the art in any form in this world of human defined “realities” and “practicalities”. The identification of adulthood is the murder of those creative powers in the kid’s mind. Many of us fall in to this trap and tie the string of denial to see the truth. Sir James Mathew Barrie (Johnny Depp) is a man who loosens that string and flies through his wings of passion and unhurt humour.
Barrie is the author of the famous play and creator of the character Peter Pan. I have not seen the play or the movie or read the story. Quite unimaginative myself I guess and another adult in the making. The movie is how the author fancied and grew closer to a widow Sylvia Llewyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four kids Jack (Joe Prospero), George (Nick Roud), Michael (Luke Spill) and of course the inspiration for his character Peter Pan, Peter (Freddie Highmore). His fun filled days with them structures into a play of identifying the child in every one of us.
Johnny Depp gives the Barrie who is funny, cheerful and always looks out for small subtleties of joy in the downtrodden society of routine. He watches his very own play with no confidence at the start. He looks out the reaction of audiences peeking through the door screen. He is out of confidence but full of freshness. Ironically he cannot transform that into his relationship. His wife Mary (Radha Mitchell) sleeps in her own room. They do not fight or Barrie is not interested in that. He prefers dullness over aggravation. He prefers to be an invisible ghost as imagination is all his. Both do not understand what missed in their marriage but slowly start to believe the eventualities.
When I watched the movie, there are those ensembles of events which cover everything in the story. It is a story of failing writer, a desolated single mother, unexplained emotion of power over her daughter in a mother, a miscommunication in a relationship and a key to the doors of imaginations. Everything falls into pieces in front and in the back ground. Nothing takes a single stage to shun the remaining stories to decline. Everything happens and happens in a mellowed and enjoyable manner. Even the grief, anger and sorrow are measured to closest precision without any spikes of melodrama.
The movie is colourful not in its visual but in the beauty of the realities Barrie defines. The definition which he manages to carry it along and also able to spread it to a family which are in dire needs of it. “Finding Neverland” is a movie which appears to be targeted towards particular set of audience. The truth is that it directs in every one and no one. It passes to every one in the sense of identifying the child in every one and also identifying adult in every one. It tells that being adult is advancement in imagining better in acknowledging the sense of it. Every one says that, “Aahh! I wish I was a kid now” and forget the kid in them. When we are kids we want to grow up faster and as an adult stay younger forever. Time flows and drags us into the wells of termed “reality”. The movie asks us flow along with it but you should not see it as “reality” but something more and cheerful as it is. It is a call to our inner self on unveiling the tightness in us and flies towards sky.
The writing is what makes this tale of social boredom into …a fairy tale. The screenplay and the dialogues take away the tension in every sequence as peaceful and are unusually funny too. Take this instance when Barrie meets Mary in his opening show of his play. He asks her, how is she and she says fine. She asks how he is and the reply Barrie gives as “I am sorry”. The scene with the uneasiness Mary expresses when Barrie comes in home to find her talking with a man at a late time is powerful and entertaining as well. Beyond that the performance of Depp is terrifically soft. He is consistent in his expressions and controlled in his demeanors. He seems to underplay and sizzles us with the positive energy of Barrie. Winslet supports him in all way possible to elevate the excellence in the screenplay.
Director Marc Forster is a man of powerful touch of adaptation. He mellowed and dangled with unusual emotions of unsettled lives in “Monster’s Ball” and here he rejuvenates the soul of every one with the same unsettled life. His mastery of story telling varies but maintains the essence of it quite flagrantly. I am yet to see his acclaimed “Stranger Than Fiction”. I was not that much impressed with his “Stay” but very much expect his couple of forthcoming ventures. “Bond 22” will be a breathtaking approach by him on our toughened up spy while “The Kite Runner” is the adaptation of the famous book by Khaled Hosseini.
2 comments:
I remember one thing about the boring lecture and imagination both at a same occasion....AND gate,OR gate and then it was the answer by you @ ur HOD classs...
COLGATE .....Cant avoid it crossed my mind...!:)
I guess it was said by Venkatesh (Prinky). Not sure though, but there are lot of jokes shared :-). I totally did not remember this until you said.
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