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+ Best London Movie of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Freddie Highmore
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| A splash of fantastic imagination and two fresh-faced major stars tempt on this poster for Marc Forster's Finding Neverland |
Scottish writer James Barrie locates his inner boy again, as he connects with a London family consisting of a widow and her four sons, which enables him to invent and write the adventure of Peter Pan.
Finding Neverland is written by David Magee (Life of Pi (2012)), based on the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan (1998)) by Allan Knee (Little Women (2005)), which centers on the true story of writer J.M Barrie's creation of the Peter Pan character in the early 20th century. The film is directed by great German filmmaker Marc Forster (Machine Gun Preacher (2011)).
Finding Neverland is a heartbreaker and an extremely soothing watch. It has wonderfully adventurous parts and outstanding performances from Johnny Depp (Dark Shadows (2012)), Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road (2008)), Julie Christie (Don't Look Now (1973)) and the boy actors, particularly Freddie Highmore (I Saw You (2002, TV-series)).
Not all of the visual ideas are resolved completely satisfactorily, but the film is splendid.
Related posts:
Marc Forster: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
World War Z (2013) - Forster, Pitt and Co.'s preposterous zombie junk
2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 116.7 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.66 times its cost)
[Finding Neverland premiered 4 September (Venice Film Festival, Italy and Telluride Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 101 minutes. Shooting took place in the UK, including London, in and around June 2002. The release was halted for a year due to a rights dispute with Miramax, who were releasing a major Peter Pan (2003) film, (which became a huge flop). The film opened #26 to a 220k $ first weekend in 8 theaters in North America and peaked at #8 and in 1,411 theaters (different weeks), grossing 51.6 mil. $ (44.2 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 9 mil. $ (7.7 %) and Italy with 8 mil. $ (6.9 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, equal to its rating here. The film was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning one, for Best Score (Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (Horsemen (2009))). It lost Best Picture to Million Dollar Baby, Actor (Depp) to Jamie Foxx in Ray, Adapted Screenplay to Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor for Sideways, Art Direction, Editing and Costume Design to The Aviator. It was also nominated for 5 Golden Globes, 11 BAFTAs, won 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. The film has since been turned into a successful stage musical. Forster returned with Stay (2005). Depp returned in The Libertine (2004), Winslet in Extras (2005, TV-series) and theatrically in Romance & Cigarettes (2005), Christie in The Secret Life of Words (2005)) and Dustin Hoffman (Marathon Man (1976)) in I Heart Huckabees (2004)). Finding Neverland is certified fresh at 82 % with a 7.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Finding Neverland?
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