(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.
The plot serves to facilitate a straightforward metaphor around departing childhood and the fear that abandoning your dreams is the required cost of admission into adulthood. By no means a novel theme, Wendy approaches the subject with enough visual interest to spark viewers into wanting to revisit this classic tale.
For a considerable portion of its runtime, Wendy will leave you breathless as you are whisked away by the eternally young vagabond Peter (Yashua Mack) to a magical world. Between the bombastic score, wildly outlandish scenery, and thematic poignancy, the film is an enchanting experience. It’s the closest the film comes in its desire to present a wholly unique experience to the familiar territory of Peter Pan lore.
Unfortunately by the fifth emotionally charged montage the magic begins to lose its potency. Around this time the story sputters into the ridiculous as it takes a bewildering turn that is equal measures darkly unpleasant as it is nonsensical.
What’s more is that the idiosyncratic language charmingly utilized in Beasts of the Southern Wild comes off as jarringly self-indulgent rather than a gentle reminder that we are seeing this world from a child’s perspective. Rallying cries featured in the film’s climax are infused with nonsensical phrases that only a child would iterate with such a strained effort for profundity that it’s difficult not to roll your eyes, rather than feel enlightened and inspired as intended.
In the end, whatever earlier emotions that were stirred are left to the wayside as the overly measured dialogue spouted by characters creates an air of artificiality, leading to an emotional distance between the storyteller and the viewer. Ultimately Wendy offers little more than superficial sentimentality. Those comfortable forgoing heart for an imaginatively stimulating experience, however, might find it worth jumping aboard.
