(2.5 / 4)
Wendy is a radical reimagining of the Peter Pan story from the creative mind of Benh Zeitlin, the writer and director of the 2012 Academy Award nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild. Unlike many iterations of the fable, this story centers on Wendy Darling (Devin France) as she and her brothers (Gage Naquin, Gavin Naquin) embark on a journey to escape the responsibilities of adulthood by jumping on a train, literally and figuratively shaking up the world they knew before.
While Beast of the Southern Wild presented harsh realities through the imaginative eyes of a child, Wendy instead transplants its child protagonists from a working class Southern setting to a fantasy filled volcanic island. A tropical take on the fabled Neverland in which the island’s power to preserve its inhabitants’ youth forever is contingent on their refusal to succumb to the negative emotions tied to growing up.