PLOT: A young girl and her brothers leave their home so they can stay eternally youthful on a magical island lorded over by a magical creature the other children on the island call “mother.”
REVIEW: This year’s Sundance Film Festival lineup had not one but two re-imaginings of Peter Pan on the bill this year. After watching COME AWAY, I was naturally wary of yet another one, but then again, there’s only one Benh Zeitlin, whose debut, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, has gone down as one of the more remarkable discoveries in the festival’s history. WENDY is a passion project he’s labored over for a few years now, with it having been shot back in 2017, and on everyone’s list of predictions for the last couple of TIFF’s and Sundance’s. It finally made its debut this year, and while it’s already proving to be a divisive second film, no one can deny it’s a starkly original piece of work.
It’s no surprise that the director who guided five-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis to an Oscar nomination has once again proven himself to be a master at working with children, with the cast of unknown kids he uses here uniquely excellent, without even a hint of precociousness between them. It’s led by young Devin France, as the headstrong Wendy who, despite her hard-working, loving mom, who tends to a rural diner under the bridge (whose dishes would for sure earn it a spot on “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives”), leaves for the unknown with her two big brothers (played by real-life siblings Gage and Gavin Naquin) in tow.
They hop a train where they meet the film’s Peter character (Yashua Mack) following him to an island paradise where they can stay young forever, or can they? As much as BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD was a fable for adults, WENDY has a similar edge, with the island’s terrible price being that once a child gives in to despair, they’ll grow old and infirm, with no way back – a fate several characters bittersweetly fall prey to. There are also a few gory moments, including a hand being graphically chopped off, which makes this probably too heavy a flick for the kiddie set, although truth be told it’s so lyrical and arty they’ll likely be bored.
Rather, WENDY is another children’s fable designed for adults, with it playing out almost like a Terrence Malick film at times, although it’s more tightly paced. It’s certainly one of the more beautiful films to play the festival, with gorgeous 16mm photography by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, while Dan Romer’s score achingly beautiful, and one of his best.
Again though, WENDY is not for everyone. Some at the festival found it a touch too fanciful, and certainly if you’re a stickler for realism this isn’t for you. It’s never explained exactly where the island is, and the rules governing who stays young and who gets old never really make sense, and virtually everyone here falls prey to despair, but only some age. But, if you can forget all of that and just take it in as an experience, WENDY is a film you won’t soon forget. It’s quite lovely.