Director:  Marc Forster
Genres: Biography | Drama | Family 
Lead actors:   Johnny Depp
Kate Winslet
Radha Mitchell
Julie Christie
Dustin Hoffman
Release Year: September 4, 2004 (VFF)
October 29, 2004
Country: United States
Run Time: 106 minutes
 

Plot:
The story focuses on Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and his close friendship with her sons, who inspire the classic play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up.
Following the dismal reception of his latest play, Little Mary, Barrie meets the widowed Sylvia and her four young sons in Kensington Gardens, and a strong friendship develops between them. He proves to be a great playmate and surrogate father figure for the boys, and their imaginative antics give him ideas which he incorporates into a play about boys who do not want to grow up, especially one named after troubled young Peter Llewelyn Davies. His wife Mary, who eventually divorces him, and Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier, object to the amount of time Barrie spends with the Llewelyn Davies family. Emma also seeks to control her daughter and grandsons, especially as Sylvia becomes increasingly weak from an unidentified illness.
Producer Charles Frohman skeptically agrees to mount Peter Pan despite his belief it holds no appeal for upper-class theatergoers. Barrie peppers the opening night audience with children from a nearby orphanage, and the adults present react to their infectious delight with an appreciation of their own. The play proves to be a huge success.
Because Sylvia is too ill to attend the production, Barrie arranges to have an abridged production of it performed in her home. She dies shortly afterward, and Barrie finds that her will is to have him and her mother to look after the boys; an arrangement agreeable to both.
 

Main characters:
Johnny Depp as J. M. Barrie
    Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies
    Dustin Hoffman as Charles Frohman
    Julie Christie as Mrs. Emma du Maurier
    Radha Mitchell as Mary Ansell Barrie
    Freddie Highmore as Peter Llewelyn Davies
    Nick Roud as George Llewelyn Davies
    Joe Prospero as Jack Llewelyn Davies
    Luke Spill as Michael Llewelyn Davies
    Ian Hart as Arthur Conan Doyle
    Oliver Fox as Gilbert Cannan
    Mackenzie Crook as Mr. Jaspers
 

Direction:
Director Marc Forster, best known for directing Halle Berry in her Oscar winning role in Monster’s Ball, comes alive in this flick. His enchanting way of putting this film together even had me, thinking happy happy thoughts. I think that his view of this story was very plesant. I like it!
 

Writing:
Screenwriter David Magee spins the web of this tale so fluidly that you’ll think he has been writing scripts for years. You’d be wrong, this is his first. I like such story as Peter Pen that's why it was very interesting for me to know how this book was written.
 

Costume design: So I believe that the costume design was great. I was involved in this era largely due well-chosen costume
 

Background music: Music did not seem to me a particularly impressive. Maybe it was because it is so blended and approach to the atmosphere, which I had not noticed it.  I do not know good or bad for this film.
 

I will not deny that like playing of Johnny Depp and this was one of the main reasons why I chose this film. and I was not mistaken. maybe I'm too biased, but I think that he played in the film brilliantly. The rest of the cast does very good jobs as well. Hoffman does well in his supporting role, but not as good as Winslet. Kate Winslet’s best work this year may have been in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but her portrayal of “Sylvia”, the penniless widowed mother of four boys, is something worth noting. All the boys do fine jobs, but of course Freddie Highmore stands out. Apparently Depp too saw something in Highmore. So much so that he convinced Tim Burton to hire him for the title role in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
 

To my mind this film is Oscar bait in every sense of the term, only not in a bad way. All the awards junk aside, Finding Neverland is a really good movie. It is heart warming, easy to get lost within it, and without a doubt will make you make you regret “growing up”. If you don’t leave the theatre with some kind of smile on your face, then seek help.