Peter Pan
(2003)
(SPOILERS) The
advent of the latest, disastrous, iteration of JM Barrie’s classic had me
wondering if the whole idea of translating the story to screen is doomed, and
that Disney simply got lucky first time. So in dutifully investigating a few
previous versions, I began with one I hadn’t caught before; PJ Hogan’s
commendably faithful attempt, as much as Joe Wright’s is entirely
disrespectful. Well, partially commendably. Perhaps a mid-ground between
diligence to the original text and invention is the optimum path, as Hogan’s
picture is admirable in many respects – and vastly superior to Wright’s – but still
fails to quite distil magic.
Pan can take some comfort that this Peter was no more successful; some
sources give it as being even more expensive (adjusting for inflation); $130m
budget according to Wikipedia, while Box Office Mojo offers a more conservative
$100m. Either way, that’s not peanuts. The outlay seems the more absurd given
that Peter Pan conspires to follow
the tradition of other live action adaptations, such that it looks highly
artificial, limited and stage-bound for much of the time. The effects are very
variable, ranging from the rather good (the crocodile) to the not so (London
and Neverland look like advent calendar animations, such that one wonders if
this was intentional). You’re left wondering where all the money went (some
blame the art department eating up the budget and causing overruns).
One is also
led to speculate whether Hogan, being Australian, has a natural affinity for
ungainly slapstick, and if that’s common to his fellow nationals or just the
ones with his surname. Probably not the latter, as there are points where this
could have been directed by Baz Lurhmann, such is the frenetically whacky
action (which, lacking comic timing, makes it mostly unfunny). Peter (Jeremy
Sumpter), darting about after his shadow, or Tinkerbell (Ludivine Sagnier)
flitting hither and thither and pulling exaggerated faces is more suggestive of
Drop Dead Fred than a hallowed
classic (Hogan wrote the screenplay with Michael Goldenberg, also credited with
the adaption of Contact, the fourth Harry Potter and – ahem – Green Lantern).
But Peter Pan is also quite deferent to the
source material, getting to grips with the highs and lows of a boy who refuses
to grow up (“Will they send me to school.
And then, to an office? Then I shall be a man”; succinctly put), the tragic
side of that position, his strange oedipal longing for Wendy (he and the Lost
Boys wish to adopt her as their mother, while they see him as their father; “Mother and father are fighting again”),
and her consequent distress that he feels nothing for her.
The
screenplay even lends Hook substance, a man whose greatest fear is loneliness
and who is even able to commiserate with Wendy at one point (and she,
indicative that she wants more than Peter is willing to offer, finds him
entrancing) and plot with Tinkerbell.
Which
rather shows up the picture’s biggest failing. It’s highly episodic, and often
incidental, taking in escapes, captures, being entertained by Hook, and his
attempt to poison Peter; all of them are accurate to Barrie’s sacred text but fail
to finesse themselves into a picture with much momentum. There’s also the issue
of serving stage play elements that don’t perhaps works so well on the big
screen (all together now; “I do believe
in fairies, I do, I do”). It’s a mistake to trust goodwill in the
theatrical template, and the panto aspects of Peter Pan can’t necessarily be relied upon to win over little
rascals in an alternate medium.
Such was
their studiousness, Hogan and Goldenberg even shot an ultimately unused epilogue
where Peter returns to Wendy. Peeved that she is now grown and married, he
takes her daughter to Neverland as his new “mother”. What is included, in
contrast to Wright, who blanched at the implications, is Tiger Lilly being an
Indian, or a “savage”; Hogan is happy
to go there. Probably, again, because he’s Australian, and insensitive to such
things.
Wendy
(Rachel Hurd-Wood) John (Harry Newell) and Michael (Freddie Popplewell) all provide
creditable performances, the former particularly so (Hurd-Wood is the only one
of the trio who has acted since). They’re all impossibly posh, another aspect
Wright eschewed with his ragamuffin Peter. Who is here played by the very
Californian (or Aryan, as you will) looking Jeremy Sumpter. His American twang
gives the character a kind of inverse exoticism, I guess. Sumpter certainly
handles the role better than Levi Miller would recently. Nevertheless, he still
isn’t really able to lend much depth to the character. Hogan, for all his
willingness to chart a course for the dark side, is too enamoured of the fizzy
pop elements to abide there for long.
The adults
mostly score solidly. Jason Isaacs cuts a better Hook than Darling. Indeed, as
the former he comes on like a dishevelled ex-rock star, and one might think he’d
been watching Johnny Depp had this not come out the same year as the first Pirates of the Caribbean. His Hook is
mostly great fun, differentiated and worthy by being more dangerous and
inelegant than Hoffman’s incarnation. The most memorable lines are his (“Growing up is such a barbarous business”,
mocking Peter’s ephemerality in the eyes of others; “There is another in your place. He is called husband”), and as he
opines that Pan will “die alone and unloved,
just like me”, you almost feel sympathy for the brute. As Darling, a man
who has put his dreams away in a drawer, to sacrifice them for his family, he’s
more successful as the repressed man than the one who rediscovers himself in
the final scene.
Richard
Briers makes a genial fist of things as an elderly Smee, even breaking the
fourth wall at one point (“Very exciting,
two dead already”). Olivia Williams, and particularly Lynn Redgrave (as a
specially created character, Aunt Millicent) are affecting, while Saffron
Burrows’ narration is perfectly pitched. But, while this a well-intentioned
adaptation, and it’s unlikely the planned Disney live-action retake will be
anywhere near as observant of the finer details, Hogan lacks the vision to
bring it off. It may be that the material defeats the medium, that the heightened
manner of the stage or animation is a better canvas. It certainly got the
better of Spielberg, and everyone thought he would be the perfect fit. Peter Pan feels like Hogan inhaled a mouthful
of fairy dust and spat it across the screen; it’s brightly coloured and
energetic, but also garish and visually undisciplined.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.