Finding Neverland: Behind The Scenes #JohnnyDepp #FreddieHighmore #KateWinslet #book2movies

Did any of you join me for yesterday’s Saturday Matinee? I’d forgotten exactly how magical and exquisitely heartbreaking Finding Neverland was. My husband, in and out of the room, would glance over “Are you crying again!?” Yes. Yes I am. Screenwriter David Magee and playwright Allan Knee gave us so much to cry about.

Peter’s (Freddie High) resentment of this man who seems to want to take over his deceased father’s role and the way Barrie gradually won him over simply by seeing him and honoring and respecting Peter’s wish to be a writer too.

The head in the clouds, half-in-this world, half-in-the-other, way that Barrie approached life. Frustrating to those in the real world who had to live with him but it was moving to see how easily he could access his own Neverland.

“Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older and before you know it, they’re grown.”

The understanding of our wish to stay in some version of childhood and childlike innocence where death and sadness have no place. We can fell imaginary pirates, play cowboys and indians, be pierced through with bullets or arrows but all survive to play another day, to live without having to live with grief. 

Sylvia’s death. After a coughing fit that sends night tables and lamps flying she has to miss seeing the debut of Barrie’s new play, Peter Pan, inspired by her boys. The play, as we all know, is a tremendous success. When Barrie brings the play to her, staging it in her living room, it’s an act of love so complete only the final curtain can top it. When the doors to the back garden open and Sylvia, her sons, her domineering mother (Julie Christie) and Barrie all walk out to the fairyland the garden has morphed into, we know what’s coming. Even husband, watching on again, off again, knows. “Is she dying?”  

I barely have time to sputter yes as the garden transforms yet again, this time into a cemetery. Barrie, the boys and her mother, all in black funereal wear.

Moving, magical, one of the best pictures of 2004 and for all time and one I wish I’d re-watched sooner. Today’s Slacker Sunday Video takes you behind the scenes with a look at the effects that gave the movie that magic touch. And please, no complaints about spoilers, eh? The movie is a dozen years old.