How weird is it that of all the attempts to deconstruct and subvert Peter Pan over the years the only one that’s really worked has been Hook? And Hook is good, but there are definitely more interesting things that can be done with the world, characters, and concepts of J.M. Barrie’s classic childrens’ story. Exploring the nuances of perpetual adolescence, the relationship children of Neverland have to the outside world, the floating nature of that reality’s time, and how Neverland itself evolves. Each of these things is addressed on some level by Wendy, the new film from Benh Zeitlin, the Academy Award nominated director of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and his first film since that 2012 indie darling. Yet he doesn’t really have anything interesting to offer with these ideas, bar the typical “dark side of your favourite fairy tales” notion and a preconception with a half-origin story for the mythos which, though far more watchable than Joe Wright’s misguided Pan, still leaves a lot to be desired.
As with Beasts of the Southern Wild, the film takes place in a magical realist approximation of the American south and from a childs’ eye view. And as with Beasts of the Southern Wild, it employs a cast of entirely first time actors. Wendy (Devin France) is the daughter of a diner waitress with two older brothers, the three of whom are whisked away one night by a boy riding the train outside their window. The train takes them to a river which leads to an ocean where they arrive on a tropical volcanic island where children never grow old, so long as they have faith in the islands’ god whom they call “Mother”. Children who don’t have enough faith will rapidly age into old adults.
Some of these recontextualized ideas aren’t bad. The train and the hidden away island are a nice touch, putting me in mind of one of the films’ clearest models, Where the Wild Things Are. Indeed, Spike Jonze’s child-subjective interpretation of a classic escapist fantasy as analogue for juvenile anxieties, aggravations, and fears is clearly in the thematic intent (whether or not it actually works) of Wendy -which likewise utilizes fluid hand-held camera motion and whimsical montage to convey a child-like sense of freedom from inhibitions and paradisiacal anarchy. Even the portrayal of Peter (Yashua Mack) as an impulsive, reckless brat, yet with a joyful spirit and lust for life that make his leadership of the Lost Boys unquestionable, is a refreshing spin on the character; even if he does at times too much resemble Zeitlins’ and Quvenzhané Wallis’ precocious imp Hushpuppy.
But it doesn’t take long to see how insubstantial all of this is, and how unwilling Zeitlin is to really explore his new vision of Barrie’s fiction in favour of just subverting it through shocks and a series of bizarre choices. Particularly in his creative origin of the Captain Hook character, there isn’t much to it except to present Peter and this Neverland in a darker light that the film uncomfortably wallows in without anything to say. It’s interesting for a moment, but almost immediately shallow and then borderline cartoonishly grim. As adult and intelligent as so many interpretations of Peter Pan can be, it is still a story for children; and though Zeitlin frames his version through a distinctly childish lens with a focus on how they see and interpret the world, he seems completely uninterested in actually speaking to children. There’s a collision between a few dark and gruesome moments and an adolescent sense of wonder that simply cannot gel together. And then there are things such as the cult-like parallels in the worship of Mother, what happens to you if you don’t believe, that the film introduces for no real point given its inability to break that down. Instead, all it leads to is a climax resembling the end of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and is equally disjointed here.
After which the film fails to resolve much of anything, at that point concerned with merely putting the right pieces in place for the Peter Pan mythos as we know it. One of the more egregious things is how nothing in Neverland seems to impact the epilogue, casting the childrens’ real world in an equally dark light where things like child disappearances can be brushed off and kidnappings seen as charming. Peter barely has to answer for anything, the most compelling character to deconstruct, is ultimately incredibly shallow. Wendy, though the title character, is often little more than an observer and occasional narrator -the film is most certainly not ABOUT her. And there’s no Tinkerbell at all!
What the film does have going for it in spite of all this is its stunning visual sense, of the same kind that Zeitlin brought to Beasts of the Southern Wild, though of course crisper and more appealing to reflect a prettier world and that sense of freedom. It was filmed in Montserrat and makes great use of both the natural Caribbean beauty and realistic CGI effects for things such as Mothers’ physical form and her Old Faithful-like volcanic eruptions. Cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen employs some of the same hypnotic camera effects characteristic of Stanley Kubrick or Terence Malick movies, giving the films’ pace a gracefulness absent in the plot. It’s a sweet movie to watch at the very least.
However as much as I admire these touches and even the ambition and passion clearly behind this project (it’s a failure, but a nobler one than your typical awful blockbuster), Wendy is a film that thinks its’ ideas alone are enough while constantly proving they aren’t. It doesn’t add anything to or comment with much insight on the Peter Pan story, nor is its reinvention particularly inspired. Attempts to darken the concepts and story beats come off as ill-thought edge-lord compulsions which undercut the attempts, though sincere, to appeal to a nostalgic fairy tale charm. It wants to have its cake and eat it, and does neither. There is still a lot of room to explore and experiment with the Peter Pan idea and I would encourage filmmakers to continue to try. Because the movie where pirates play baseball can’t be the limit to this story’s cultural evolution.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JordanBosch
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
Comments
Post a Comment