Directed By Benh Zeitlin

Starring – Yashua Mack, Devin France, Gage Naquin

The Plot – The classic story of Peter Pan is wildly reimagined in a ragtag epic. Lost on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, Wendy (France) must fight to save her family, her freedom, and the joyous spirit of youth from the deadly peril of growing up.

Rated PG-13 for brief violent/bloody images

POSITIVES

– Isolated location. The island of Montserrat serves as the majority of the film’s central premise, and serves immensely in the mentality of these kids living in their own world, far from the confines of civilization. In real life, this island south of Antigua depopulated after a major volcanic eruption in 2002, and because of such afforded the cast and crew of this film several months of uninterrupted shooting time to depict its many mountains and underwater caverns that the spirit of an adventurous child can be satisfied with. On top of this, many of the sets on the island were abandoned structures that were made to be a prominent stage for scenes in this film, and gave much of the film’s central premise a very lived-in feeling of authenticity that most films don’t garner because of their immense budgets allowing for construction and deconstruction of sets created purely for filming purposes.

– Unique cinematography. The entirety of “Wendy” is shot in 16 MM film, a wondrous decision that not only captures the raw intensity of childhood, but also photographs backdrops and colors in a way that feels untouched by post-production correction. Because much of the lens in the film lacks the kind of glossy appeal that we’ve come to expect with film advancements, the movie maintains this truthful appeal that puts us the audience in the shoes of one of its many parentless children, and moves in a way that practically allows us to feel the breeze of the many things flying right at us to the many swift movements the shot compositions garner. Cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grovlen, a man known for incorporating grit to the foreign list of films that he has shot, takes an energetic approach to the way he shoots “Wendy”, garnering flies, overgrown weeds, and even water to our eye level, which gives the film an immersing quality that the Peter Pan fairytale has never felt more accessible from.

– Original approach. Peter Pan’s story has been retold from several different angles of originality by 2020, so for a film like “Wendy” to come along and enthuse us once more with a different approach both in genre and storytelling structure, is probably the only way that a film in this world could exist nearly one hundred-ten years after the character’s creation. This is a very stripped-down, bare-bones approach to the fantasy world we fell in love with as children, but one that doesn’t suffer because of such limitations. Instead, Zeitlin captures and articulates the adventurous spirit of childhood, and what it means to feel immortality at such a young and fragile age. It trades in magic in fanciful tricks like flying for the stability of having a family, and really grants the story a sentimental side of belonging that so many of the literary works of Pan captured in extraordinarily different ways.

– Weight of time. In what I can honestly interpret as being the first time in a Peter Pan live action adaptation, the boundaries of time feel fully illustrated, and given a rendering of the film’s prime antagonist when seen through those who are fighting so viciously against it. Not only because the genre of the film is primarily dramatic, but also because these kids approach the concepts of time as this ghost that they are running so frantically from, it fully fleshes out the tragic and traumatic elements of the film fruitfully, and does so with an element of hope that makes us the audience wonder if they can overcome it because anything is possible in a Neverland world of magic that we’ve come to accept. It presents the single biggest adversity for the lost boys, and does so while feeling like a conjured up poison that persists in the atmosphere that feels virtually inescapable, and even for a movie as narratively incoherent as “Wendy” often is, it does preserve an air of consequences that we’re not used to in this fairytale setting.

– Powerful message. One of the cornerstones of the narrative deals with the refreshing approach to the ages old theme that made the Peter Pan story a one of a kind benefit to child and adult audience simultaneously. It’s presented here, but in a way that adds layers onto the approach, and doesn’t discredit being an adult in favor of the joys of being a child. For my money, the movie talks about this message that we are all kids at heart, and that sometimes we look at adulthood as this very distant journey that we don’t want to embark upon, but that growing up can be the greatest adventure of all. It also vibrantly paints that we start to hinder ourselves in adulthood when we let that light of adolescence disappear, and that we need to look at every day as a spiraling adventure. It gives the film a tasteful depth that at least sends us out of the movie with a strong direction towards life, and makes how you feel about this film secondary to what you can take from it thematically.

NEGATIVES

– Ineffective performances. With the exception of France as the titular character, who harvests the longing, adventurous spirit of an adolescent accordingly, the rest of the child cast unfortunately falls flat for the kind of emotional resonance the movie pulls so strong towards. I don’t entirely blame the children themselves, because they are given such miniscule direction of character development to work with. It leaves most of them very little to do other than yelling in and out of frame of the shot compositions that only value them on a brief standard occasionally. Beyond the kids, the adult actors in the film are also entirely one-note, mainly because they wonder aimlessly in a moping fashion, which like the kids, leave them no room of ambition to preserve anything memorable about their nuanced efforts. There’s no question of this film’s title, because no one outside of Wendy garners anything that is slightly memorable to escape the confines of its mediocre decision making.

– Incoherent storytelling. It’s a good idea to read the plot before seeing this movie, because there was little materialized that I competently understood when it came to where this story took us. For the majority, it’s really just children running around and enjoying the world far from parental eyes. When that charm wears off, we’re left with so little thematically on the bone of expectations that the film’s pacing takes a dramatic nosedive that makes 105 minutes of run time feel nearly twice that during the lukewarm second half. When I heard that the story takes place in a world that is environmentally crumbling, I was yearning for some hearty sized social commentary that I could pull from it to compare to my own world, but it’s all approached at such a surface level of attack that it might as well not exist in this story, and with the combination of a developing antagonist that I will get to in a second, makes so much of the story’s direction floating aimlessly in the world of so many possibilities.

– Captain Hook. It pains me to say this, but he could easily not exist in this particular story of the Peter Pan folklore. Why I say this is because the movie spends so little time hinting that this character even exists in this world, then pulls a swift left turn once he does pop-up, and just kind of momentarily resides until his character and subplot disappears from the screen. I will say that it was at least clever how he’s worked into the picture of this version of the Lost Boys, but I wish the film realized him in a way that makes him an unshakeable presence on this island. He’s not even remotely the same menacing figure that previous incarnations have illustrated, nor is his amount of screen time anything that deserved attention for a story that takes place during the Lost Boys being their absolute youngest.

– Unnecessary narration. One of the biggest cliches of contemporary cinema strikes again, this time in a film that harvests it only to feel pretentious over a film so mentally thin. The narration is read by the title character, and doesn’t shed a single layer of importance for its inclusion. Even worse, what it is saying doesn’t echo anything when compared to what is taking shape on-screen, and feels like a collection of audible inserts that the movie’s production tries so painfully to work in with one way or another. My wish for the future of cinema is that movies have enough faith to believe in their audience to interpret things coherently, and leave the narration for scenes requiring reflection, similar to post-event commentary. It’s a tool that can be used for good, but “Wendy” isn’t one of those times, because it often takes much away from the sentiments of the film where the language of love and friendship are told through what transpires through these kids encountering unforeseen matters together.

– Flat characterization. This one is slightly forgivable because of this being a story revolving in and around Wendy Darling, but my personal opinion is that I could’ve used more fleshing out for the characters surrounding her. It’s a problem because I found absolutely no characters other than Wendy who I enthusiastically got behind, and worried for their well-being. Hell, Peter Pan is a spineless jellyfish in the film, who often hides behind a safety net, and gets other unfortunate children to do things for him. As for the adults, they are only important when they are around the kids, and the movie’s ignorance of silencing them during the moments when their children go missing is something that is gravely important not only to the urgency of the narrative, but also to the commentary of those affected by childish irresponsibility.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+