Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Levi Miller, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Adeel Akhtar, Nonso Anozie, Amanda Seyfried, Kathy Burke, Lewis MacDougall, Cara Delevingne, Jack Charles, Tae-joo Na.
The astounding J. M. Barrie’s mischievous creation, the noble and forthright Peter Pan, is so beloved, not just in the U.K. but all over the globe, that it really is not surprising just how much affection the character garners and just how many films and stories that stay in the mind. It is a character that offer offers everything to the child’s imagination and as such stays within the heart of the adult when such things as fantastical pirates, fairies, crocodiles and flying boys should perhaps be left to fade away into the world of half remembered dreams.
Everybody knows the story of Peter Pan, anybody who has revelled in the Walt Disney studios classic cartoon adaptation has arguably and Universally fallen for its charms and yet every story has a beginning, every tale has a place in which the truth of the adventure starts and for some its where the next great adventure begins.
In the live action film Pan, written with much appreciation and honest keeping of the J.M. Barrie flame by Jason Fuchs, the story truly begins as Peter is left on the doorsteps of an orphanage run by strict nuns as a baby in the years leading up to Humanity’s great folly and the darkness of World War Two.
Neverland though is not being terrorised by Captain James Hook, there is no leader of rebellious intent, just a state of lawlessness and corruption, a place where the terror of the seas in Captain Blackbird has stolen all the orphans in the world and makes them dig for any sign of elusive fairy dust. It is into this world that the Pan returns to fight.
Jason Fuchs pays tender homage to J.M. Barrie and avoids the pitfalls that befell the gallant Hook and yet perhaps to some over the top acting and under developed scenes by the director and cast, still doesn’t quite hit the heights that the legend of the Pan deserves, and yet, despite it all, the feeling of warmth the film generates is so palpable that it is truly impossible to hate, ignore or make tones of a farcical nature about. Pan is a film for the child and the inner child alike. It is a film that resonates because it plays with that fear of being lost, even as a so called adult, a feeling that time has left us behind and that we are all orphans in a way, whether naturally with the loss as children of our parents or as the feeling that society has taken leave of its senses and left us bereft of understanding our place within it anymore; it is a framing of the idea of loss and lack of reality in the world that makes Pan stand out.
With Levi Miller as the young orphaned and reluctant Peter Pan and the superb Garrett Hedlund as fellow captive of Captain Blackbeard, James Hook, the unlikely friendship of two of literature’s greatest enemies is a twist that is both gratifying and seemingly natural, a blessing of screen writer’s inspiration. It is just a shame that the normally intensely likeable Hugh Jackman and the ever captivating Kathy Burke as Mother Barnabus don’t really stand up to the same treatment that the film truly suggests should be possible.
Lavish in its delivery, abundant with Peter Pan mythology, Pan is a film that speaks to us adult and child alike, that captures a piece of your heart and refuses to let go, a film that despite the high standards enacted against it by the legacy of J.M. Barrie’s fertile imagination, stands up against the rigours of the modern and often unforgiving age and is seen to hold its own; Pan after all makes you believe that a child’s imagination can still run riot inside the mind of a cynical grown up.
Ian D. Hall