Wendy Review

Wendy as you may have either guessed from the title or saw the trailer is a re-imaging of the Peter Pan story. For me this is more of using Peter Pan as inspiration for the story rather than calling it a re-imaging or as some call it a new interpretation of the classic story. Yes, you have characters named Wendy and Peter, yes there is the island where kids can not age and the idea of never losing your inner child. The movie starts where a young boy named Thomas wanders off and boards a train and skip forward several years, has never returned, when a young girl named Wendy and her twin brothers (Douglas and James) hop on a train in the middle of the night. Finding a young boy on the train named Peter they are kicked out of the moving train over water, where a boat awaits to take them to a mystical island. On this island are two populations, children who never grow up and old people who stopped believing. The two live on separate sides of the island as the children play and run about, with a fondness and protection of a large fish-like creature named 'Mother', while the older inhabitants are trying to get their youthfulness back by capturing 'Mother' believing eating her flesh will bring back their youth.

This is a hard movie to try and explain as it is one that to me has to be experienced to understand, It is very obvious that the filmmaker behind Beast of the Southern Wild is behind this from the look and feel of the movie once it starts it has that whimsical feel while still having a worn, rusty, aesthetic. There were times I felt this was a Peter Pan movie and other times if the characters had different names, I would just take it as a fantastical youth adventure film as there are enough changes to the story. What is still there though is the messages about keeping hope and youthful joy in your lives as your grow up that J.M. Barrie with his classic story instilled on the world. There are tons of messages, takeaways or symbolic meanings that can be interpreted from watching this if you sit and think on every thing. As with Beasts of the Southern Wild the children in the movie are for the most part all unknowns, however I can see one or two of them coming out of this into the spotlight as Quvenzhané Wallis has become a common name in the film world. As beautiful as the island is and the rich production design of combining fantasy with an almost dystopian aesthetic, there were a couple problems I had with the movie which are mostly pacing related, I felt the beginning dragged on a little bit and towards the middle it also slowed down as we waited for the conflict to start. There is also some use of handy cam work that results in shaky cam at times that I think other setups would have worked better. Though if you watch the making of this movie and read a little bit about it, the island they filmed scenes on called Montserrat was severely devesated from a volcanic eruptions in the 1990's and the remote locations made it hard to get to safely except for the more critical cast and crew, so, while I was not a fan of some shaky cam moments, I get that you have to the best with what you have to work with.  Most will say its another Peter Pan movie and skip it alone on that merit, which I can  kind of understand then you will have those that are put off by the trailers and the look of the film, those that have seen Beasts of the Southern Wild and enjoyed it or recognized the passion the filmmakers had to craft that one will enjoy Wendy. I do not think its worth going out of your way to  watch or pay the theater at home fee I did unless you are in the latter group I mentioned, I do feel though it will be worth a watch on a streaming service you subscribe to once it becomes available on it, if you are looking for something outside the mainstream studios. C.