Oh, The Cleverness Of Me

So Borders is running a great special right now: buy any children's DVD and get 25% off any other DVD in the store. As kids DVDs tend to be affordably priced, it's very easy to find a good combination of worthwhile films. I eventually chose to pick up the Peter Pan adaptation released a couple of years back (only $15!) and All About Lily Chou-Chou. Talk about your different views of the difficult transition from childhood into the adult world! I put off watching Lily Chou-Chou for now because of the depressing subject matter, but I also ordered the import 2-disc version of Hana and Alice, so when it comes in, I'll have some light Iwai to go with the dark.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on about that. Back to Peter Pan. All anybody really knows of him these days is what they saw in the 1950s Disney version, which, to be honest, I enjoyed. (If you're old enough, you may know who Mary Martin is as well...) But you go back far enough, and you get to J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan as a play and novel back at the turn of the century. Watching this movie (again) made me wish (again) that I had read the originals. This version of the story features imaginative design and effects. Particularly impressive are the voyage to Neverland and the fight in the Black Castle, though the storybook London in which the Darlings reside is no less spectacular than Neverland.

What works best for me, though is the dramatic tension between the eternally childlike Peter and the soon-to-be adolescent Wendy. Disney makes Peter a hero, Spielburg's Hook tried to imagine Peter as a grown-up, but this version makes it clear that Peter is incapable of either growing up or exhibiting the courage and responsibility to be a real hero. The sexual frustration of Wendy becomes palpable as she recognizes that her new awareness of romance and attraction simply cannot be returned by Peter. Though he becomes the owner of her "secret kiss", Peter cannot understand why that matters. It's not that the film is sexual in any way, but that the film gives Peter and Wendy an opportunity to become aware of all that Peter has lost through his eternal childhood.

The climax of this story can best be seen in the alternate ending included in the DVD's supplemental features which gives insight into the Peter's tragedy. Set about 20 years later, Peter returns to Wendy's bed, but he is surprised to see that the girl sleeping there is not Wendy, but Wendy's daughter. The scene between a confused Peter and a wise Wendy is carried out magnificently. Peter genuinely does not understand the burdens and blessings of the passage of time. As he is pleading with Wendy, we understand that Peter is cursed to live the same moments over and over. The supplemental material points out that J.M. Barrie's older brother died as a child, and the Pan character is in many ways, Barrie's own attempts to both immortalize his brother and deconstruct the tragedy of his unfulfilled life. The dramatic conclusion of this ending is a mess, though, as the story tries to pull off an audience-pleasing happy ending, supporting the decision to go with the ending used in the theatrical version.

Not everything in the film works. The first 15 or 20 minutes rush a bit. I actually feel that the story gets to Neverland too early. The domestic scenes with the Darlings could have used more patience, especially considering how important Mr. and Mrs. Darling's actions are later in the film. Also - and this might be a fault of the source material - cumbersome lines are given to the children to say, lines that might sound good for a Victorian-era playwright. For the most part, the actors gamely pull them off, but sometimes they just can't pull them off, such as when Peter declares, "Oh the cleverness of ME!" Now I don't know about you, but I've got a hunch a boy who never grows up is more likely to declare "I am so great!"

Still, it's a very fun movie with something for the grown-ups to chew on. I think it performed disappointingly at the box office, but with a new low $15 price tag, it's worth checking out, maybe even worth buying.