Benjamin's Stash: Video Pick of the Week

      Hello, readers. This week marks the opening of The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. I'll be seeing an early screening tonight, and the review will possibly be up tomorrow along with The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Since the The Lone Ranger is a Johnny Depp movie, I'm devoting this week's video recommendation to a Depp movie of mine. Running my collection quickly through my head, I'm gonna say I have at least ten Johnny Depp movies. I could go with Blow, Donnie Brasco, Edward Scissorhands, From Hell, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or even The Pirates of the Caribbean films. However, my pick will be a film that despite earning Depp a Best Actor Oscar nomination, still kinda got buried under the radar in terms of what he's known for doing.

      Finding Neverland tells the story of not Peter Pan, but how the beloved classic came to be. Following the poor reception of his latest play, Little Mary, Scottish writer J. M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) meets the widowed Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four sons - George, Jack, Michael, and Peter - in Kensington Gardens. From there, a strong and strictly platonic relationship develops between them as Barrie becomes somewhat of a surrogate father, even a playmate, to the young boys. It's through the boys' imaginative antics that Barrie finds the inspiration for his next play, Peter Pan. The play does not come without its share of struggles both inside and out of the playwright industry. Both Barrie's wife Mary (Radha Mitchell) and Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie) object to the amount of time he has been spending with the Davies family. Also acting as a roadblock is play producer Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman), who is skeptical of Peter Pan, feeling it contains no appeal to the theatergoers, who are typically the upper-class type. Despite his skepticism, Frohman agrees to stage the play.

      As much as I love seeing Depp play Capt. Jack Sparrow, or Sweeney Todd, or Edward Scissorhands, I believe his role here as J. M. Barrie is his best performance out of them all. It's not a flashy performance. He's not caked under ten tons of makeup. It's a quiet, restrained, yet beautifully moving and heartfelt performance that further proves why he's one of the most versatile actors ever. The supporting cast is equally strong. Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, and Dustin Hoffman all deliver great supporting work. Newcomer, at the time, Freddie Highmore gets to be a bit of scene stealer in his moments with Johnny Depp, and the two of them together nail it perfectly. Although she doesn't have to prove it to me still in any way, Kate Winslet shows once again why she's my favorite actress ever, and I absolutely loved the relationship between her Sylvia and Depp's Barrie. You know the two aren't gonna fall in love or anything like that, but I'll be damned if I find any cheap, sappy bull shit chick flick that can top, or even just match the heart, depth, and beauty within their platonic relationship. With two of the best performers of their generation in Depp and Winslet, two veteran acting presences in Christie and Hoffman, a terrific young performance from Highmore and direction from one of the most underrated directors of the past ten or so years in Marc Forster, this is a must see. If you haven't seen this film, do so. If you have, who cares? Watch it again.