“Wendy”, the new film by Benh Zeitlin, opens with tender caresses and reflections of radiant light. Just like at the start of his first smashing feature, “Beasts of the Southern Wild”, the camera is drawn to a girl whose world is amazed, strange rituals and spooky shocks. In “Beasts”, the girl’s name was Hushpuppy and she lived in a ruined paradise called the bathtub. Here, the girl is Wendy and she lives in her own dilapidated utopia, one that borrows a little from “Beasts” and, more generously and unproductively, from “Peter Pan” by J.M. Barrie.
There are other similarities between the two Zeitlin films, including sumptuous cinematography and a propulsive score, a crowd of charming children and a nod to our environmental crisis. With his exquisite, almost cubist close-ups of an infant in the arms of a woman, the opener for “Wendy” suggests that Zeitlin embraced abstraction even more boldly than in “Beasts”. Here, the child, a cherub with a halo of dark curls, gradually develops. Like the pieces of an unresolved puzzle, it appears in fragments – a fluffy arm, a beautifully whipped eye, a face surrounded by honeyed light – which gently suggest that it is truly a work in progress.
It’s a good start and for about 50 minutes Zeitlin continues to add beauty, fill in the background and add detail while the film drifts pleasantly. Even when Wendy ages, becoming a rather sober 9-year-old child (Devin France), everything winds, swirling rather than walking forward. Then, one night, Wendy and her brothers jump on a train, coaxed on board by a laughing boy, Peter (Yashua Mack), and the drift gives way to the churn, the hum of the wheels, the driving of the music and spicy momentum. Wendy is clearly on an adventure, ready to take off. But when the children arrive on a lush volcanic island, the film stops dead in its tracks.
The volcanic island is the gloss of the film on Neverland, the enchanted kingdom where children never grow up. In Barrie’s story, this is where Peter reigns, flies through the air, father of the lost boys, fights Captain Hook and provides material for countless hand treatises on men who refuse to grow up. This is also where Wendy assumes the role she will assume when she grows up, a role that Peter describes with a deflating announcement: “Great news, boys,” he says. “I finally brought a mother for all of you.” In Barrie’s version, Wendy cooks and takes care of the boys soon, sidelined by the conventions of the time that Zeitlin completely abandons.
One problem with “Wendy” is that Zeitlin borrowed too much from Barrie and not enough. (Zeitlin shares the script’s credit with his sister, Eliza.) He keeps the characters and the names, and emphasizes the idea of childhood as freedom. He also harped the narration and nodded in proto-cinematographic forms – hand puppets, wall drawings – but did not give the children much interest in doing or saying. For the most part, it simply cuts them. They run, scream and sleep. From time to time, the volcano blows its summit and someone goes swimming, diving into caves where sparkle stalactites and a creature named Mother sings. There are elderly people, but they are an obstacle.
The Mother – an iridescent drop like a whale with the touching look of an elephant – does indeed have the maternal role that Wendy assumes in Barrie’s version. It’s a clever and modernizing change that frees Wendy from the gender strait-jacket, simply allowing her to be a child rather than a surrogate mother or a potential flagship. In particular, she and Peter read much younger than the characters in Barrie or Disney, another review that firmly bases Zeitlin’s creations on (fake) childhood safety. There is also no Tinker Bell, for better or worse, and none of the sexualized jealousies that remind you that girls and women rarely have the right to get lost.
Zeitlin tries to remedy this in “Wendy” by highlighting the main character and pushing the boys, Peter included, to the side. Wendy has her moments, of course, but she remains frustrating and underdeveloped and uninvolved, despite the clamor and triumphalism of the score. When the Mother is in danger, I had hoped that Wendy would become Greta Thunberg, stop chatting while growing up and start a revolution or even a small riot. No dice. Instead, she and the others keep screaming and spinning their wheels as Zeitlin – who turns out to be more sentimental about childhood than Barrie – keeps the whirring parts, looking for a meaning that never comes completely.
Wendy
Classified PG-13 for unsupervised shenanigans and a severed hand. Duration: 1 hour 52 minutes.