Neverland (I) (2003)
10/10
I thought I'd seen everything...
15 November 2004
It takes a lot to surprise me, but I was shocked by this. This has to be one of the most subversive things I've ever seen... and not like a porn version of "Alice in Wonderland" or something like that. This low-budget movie very subtly and gradually melted away the Peter Pan mythology and rebuilt it in the most disturbing way. It was as if the filmmakers took the story of Peter Pan and forced it to grow up, without changing its core. A masterful concept that was handled extraordinarily well despite some obvious budget limitations. My wife cried at the end of this film and couldn't stop. While I found it challenging on an intellectual level, I didn't have the emotional response that she did. When I asked her why she found it so sad she told me that when she was young she would always dream that Peter would show up and fly her away to Neverland, and as she got older she of course had the "prince charming" fantasy. She told me that watching this movie was like the symbolic nail in the coffin of that dream. So not only did this movie freak me out, it made my marriage more depressing. In any case, it was powerful, entertaining, and thought provoking... and very captivating. So when someone says they hate this movie and they want to throw the DVD against the wall, I can understand where they are coming from.

Neverland delivers a strong, sometimes harshly realistic message, but we can't hate the messenger now, can we? Neverland gets an 8.
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