Peter Pan and Wendy

 

"His eyes were the blue of the forget-me-not, and of profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit up horribly. In manner, something of the great seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told he was a raconteur of repute. He was even more sinister than when he was polite..."

"To die would be an awfully big adventure."

Does anyone really want to grow up? For all the drivel that has been pounded into our brains over the past few years about the joys of aging, is there anyone who really would prefer the demands and pressures of adulthood to the joy and simplicity of childhood? James Hook certainly does not. For all his talk about how much he hates the proud, insolent youth that is his arch nemesis, he still moans about the cracking of his bones. Peter Pan may dread the thought of growing old, but Hook seems to embody the universal hatred of it. "This is what growing up looks like," Hook scowls to an encaged Wendy.

As for Peter, well, his hatred of adulthood and adults is well known. If you look at the eight reasons why people hate growing up according to Catherine Winter, Peter possesses at least seven of them: fear of autonomy and loneliness, less fun, not knowing any happy adults, vanity, unresolved childhood trauma, a feeling of being trapped in the glory days of youth, and perhaps a personality disorder such as being overdramatic or unpredictable. (He does at one point slam the door, which one of the Lost Boys says is never a good sign, meaning he must do it often.) The only one he surely does not have is the last one: "To grow up means that they're adults," Winter writes. "Once they're adults, they have to acknowledge that they're aging. Aging means growing old. Growing old means they're going to die. Although death is part of the natural life cycle for every living thing, death-denying Western culture cherishes youth and beauty, and vilifies old age. Death is something to be battled against, denied, ignored, not dealt with at all."

Come to think of it, perhaps Peter does fear death. He battles it quite literally against the only adult he is in somewhat regular contact with. Would dying really be an adventure, as Peter claims? That's probably just a defense mechanism to suggest that he's afraid of nothing. Indeed, he's afraid of everything. This Peter, played here by Alexander Molony in his debut performance, even cries and tells Wendy (played by Ever Anderson) that he ran away when his mother scolded him. Peter, the Lost Boys (and girls, as is the case here, which surely must be a first), and even Hook himself are all devoid of mothers. That's why they cling to Wendy so much. Given that so many characters here lack a mother, a mother figure, or really any kind of parent, and given how important the role of a mother can be in a child's developmental growth, it's no wonder so many of the characters turn out the way they do. The audience cheers for the boy Peter Pan against the grouchy authoritarian that is Captain Hook, but Peter Pan is really one of the most pro-adult tales there is.

Disney tries to show us this in their latest live-action remake of one of their older animated films, the 1953 animated Peter Pan, adapted here as Peter Pan and Wendy, which is at least the dozenth adaptation of J.M. Barrie's famous story about a boy who won't grow up and the vengeful pirate out to get him. Disney (ever so slightly) plays with such ideas of anxiety and the consequences of motherlessness, so Peter Pan and Wendy is not as two-dimensional as other adaptations, like the 1923 version (the first on-screen adaptation of the story), the Broadway version (whose rerun in the 1980s was perhaps the first time I had come in contact with this famous story), or the animated version that the film reminds us was inspired by (when in fact they share very little in common, tonally at least).   

When watching the first twenty minutes or so of this newest film, one might wonder if it will be just like all the other versions. Adapting this story is risky; be too faithful of an adaptation, and you could make the film stale, while trying something too novel could make the whole thing wobbly (such as it was in a sequel like Hook or a prequel like Pan). Indeed, the only noticeable deviations in the first act are minute ones: Tinker Bell is less adversarial towards Wendy than she is in other versions, and the children already know who Peter Pan is from their stories by the time he flies into their home. For a while, it's unfortunate that the film follows all the usual beats while checking all the boxes: the pirates, the crocodile, the shadow, crowing, the thimble being mistaken for a kiss, and all that stuff.  

Fortunately, however, the film is in good hands, and when director David Lowery (who also directed The Old Man & the Gun, The Green Knight, and Disney's live-action remake of Pete's Dragon) nudges the story in different directions, the results are mostly good. The first example of this is when Peter, Wendy, George, and Michael fly out of the London skies, through Big Ben, and right into what seems to be another realm. This would be an appropriate time to praise the contributions of the others in this project, namely cinematographer Bojan Bazelli, whose choice of color palate adds an authentic fairy tale aesthetic, costumer designer Ngila Dickson, and Zoe Jirik and Jade Healey, whose set decoration and production design (respectively) are so much better than the excessive stand-in of green screens. 

Indeed, one of the only flaws of the 2003 Peter Pan (which is still probably the best of the adaptations) is its overuse of Industrial Light and Magic's computer-generated imagery, which sometimes gave that film a fake look during the height of Hollywood's obsession with CGI. Instead, the visual effects provided by Framestore and DNEG not only look better twenty years after 2003 Peter Pan, but they sometimes make up for the film's narrative flaws, meshing exceptionally well with the gorgeous scenery of the Bonavista Peninsula in Newfoundland. This may not be the very best version of Peter Pan, but it is certainly the best looking. 

The acting is also (mostly) good, especially the earnestness of the two leads and the tenderness of Molly Parker as Mrs. Darling. The actor who looks like is having the most fun is, as expected, Jude Law as Captain Hook. Every eyebrow he raises, every line he shouts, every threat he gives with his prodigious hook look like they are done with great theatricality and gratification. The cast in general is slightly more diverse, with Tinker Bell being played by Yara Shahidi, and the Lost Boys are a diverse group of boys and girls, many of whom are people of color. Noah Matthews Matofsky makes history as the first person with Down syndrome to appear in a Disney film; he plays one of the Lost Boys. Finally, Alyssa Wapanatâhk plays Tiger Lilly, who's a larger part than she was in the past, with her being just as much an action star as Amber Midthunder was in Prey last year. Wapanatâhk's casting is noteworthy because, despite the character being indigenous, she is often played by people of other ethnicities, like Anna May Wong in the 1923 version or Rooney Mara in Pan. The film's diversity is a strength, though one wishes film companies would go further and be brave with on-screen adaptations of Austin Chant's novel Peter Darling in which Peter is a trans man or Jodi Lynn Anderson's book Tiger Lilly, which is told through this character's perspective. However, given Disney's fight with Ron DeSantis and corporations' fear of being called "woke," this is unlikely to happen. Additionally, there has already been racist attacks at Disney for this slightly more diverse cast, with bigots whining about it (right on cue). This likely is a warm-up act for their vitriol against the upcoming The Little Mermaid.         

Is Peter Pan and Wendy the best version of this famous tale? Probably not. Is it the second best? Probably. Children will likely love the film, especially the flights, the fights, and even the humor, but they will also probably like any Peter Pan film. The adults will find themselves relating to Hook for reasons previously mentioned. As for me, the production designs were top-notch, and the actors all looked like they were having a ball. I like how the film toys with deeper themes; I just wish it had gone further.