Barrie is played unexpectedly well by Johnny Depp. Kate Winslet plays Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, the widow he falls in love with and maintains a platonic relationship with, while becoming a sort of father to her children. In the meantime, he’s working on the Peter Pan play that will make his name, and which is inspired by the family he has become so attached to.
It’s quite a touching story. “Neverland” works as a metaphor for make-believe/imagination and also for Heaven. There’s a strong performance by Julie Christie, as Sylvia’s strict and frosty mother. Dustin Hoffman is refreshingly unselfconscious as Charles Frohman, the play’s producer.
It would be easy to criticise the film’s extremely sanitised portrayal of terminal disease, but it’s a story all about the imagination so it therefore seems to make sense that gritty realism is held at bay.
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