Benh Zeitlin burst onto the scene with Beasts of the Southern Wild, a revelation of a film about a young girl growing up in a poor lawless part of the United States. His Oscar nomination for that film meant Zeitlin was a director to be watched. Wendy, his follow up, isn’t the revelation that Beasts was, but it’s still a daring, beautiful looking film that lingers in your brain after you leave the theater.
Wendy (Devin France) is a young girl living in a dead end existence somewhere near a coast. Fearing the loss of dreams her mother has, Wendy longs to gather the courage to jump on one of the trains passing by and get out, never wanting to grow up. That chance arrives in the form of Peter (Yashua Mack), who convinces Wendy and her twin brothers James and Douglas (Gavin and Gage Naquin) to ride with him. They get off at a magical island, where some of Wendy’s dreams might come true.
Zeitlin clearly has an interest in what children think about. Wendy immerses us fully in the children’s point of views. These kids are pretty much like kids anywhere else, except instead of the kids living in Kensington Gardens, they live with nothing, all sharing a bedroom above their mom’s diner. Thus, imagination as an escape makes total sense, and it would revolve around the trains, going to and from these places unknown to the kids. So Peter, the train hopper, is seen as a mythical figure to Wendy and the boys, not something to be scared of, as they acclimate to their new surroundings. After a blissful early period on the island, we then start to see the different thought processes of the kids: Wendy might have just wanted an adventure and started to grow up, whereas Peter truly thinks not growing up is the best option for adventure. Small differences of opinion turn into conflict, which help give the movie a growing sense of unease as well as propulsion, wondering how these kids might evolve, good or bad, as the story goes along. Will they grow up?
Or will they stay in Neverland? Yes, Wendy is THE Wendy and Peter is meant to be Peter Pan. Half of the fun of Wendy is Zeitlin working the famous story/play into his movie style and how well most of it fits. Neverland is truly awe inspiring; with a relatively small budget, it’s pretty amazing how Zeitlin got some of the creatures/epic shots which give Wendy more power than your normal adventure film while somehow also not losing that grounding in the real world. Yes, some of the magic is used as plot device, but those uses are very effective, most so during Captain Hook’s origin story. Zeitlin never forgets that Peter Pan is beloved because it is a child’s bedtime story, and that stories become legends because of some combination of wonder/magic and storyteller exaggeration.
Who is this for? syndrome can sometimes cripple a movie before people even give it a chance. I imagine kids might grow a tad fidgety because of the lack of shiny things onscreen, and parents might struggle with how dark and maybe simplistic the kids can be at times. Wendy I hope endures though, because it’s trying to forge a new path forward for family films. Plus, all those kids with nothing to their name can maybe find something imaginative and hopeful in Wendy and Peter’s adventures anew.