Whether it be a crime family or a makeshift coterie of privateers; whether it involves one spouse married to another, or encompasses a string of failed marriages and divorces; whether it be a foreign-born family or the all-American variety, film fans know that Johnny Depp will be at its center.
Does all the above mean the prolific and versatile actor, producer, and musician has had relatively few anxieties where his own family is concerned? Um ... not quite. The famously tightlipped Depp had been in a live-in relationship with singer-actress Vanessa Paradis since 1999. This resulted in the birth of a daughter, Lily-Rose Melody (now an actress), and a son, Jack Jr., two offspring who happen to be born three years apart.
They say that parenthood brings out the crinkly-eyed mellowness in people. And being a father certainly has its positive "up" side, as well as those negative "down" aspects nobody likes to talk about. Like everything else, you never know how married life can turn out until you try it. Likewise, you never know how you will turn out as a parent (a mother, a father, a surrogate, whatever) when it comes to raising your own brood.
During Johnny's filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, he would often stay in character - so much so that little son Jack once thought "Dad" was a real buccaneer! Too, Depp would don the three-cornered hat, fancy boots, and frock coat, along with gold-trimmed teeth and unwashed "dreads," in his visits to children's hospitals, orphanages, and cancer wards where the kiddie inhabitants would flock to see him. Charity work, to paraphrase an old expression, begins in one's home.
On one occasion, Johnny paid a call on a British grade school that resulted in his leading the young charges in a fake mutiny against the faculty - and the students loved every minute of it. This was all staged in response to a cute little girl's letter to "Mr. Jack Sparrow" about her plans for a "rebellion." To further embellish the proposal, Depp brought along a few cast members (they were shooting a scene nearby) as backup. The girl's teacher was "in" on the scheme and conspired with "Jackie" to make it all happen. As for the little girl? She was absolutely thrilled!
Aw, shucks! Why couldn't Mr. Depp turn this humorous, true-to-life incident into a lovable onscreen endeavor? Sounds like a fun concept, don't you think? Something to tell the grandkids about. Well, now, we're waaaaaay ahead of you! If fantasy can mimic real life, then real life can be turned into fantasy - a childhood fantasy, at that.
Finding Neverland (2004)On a related theme - one that was miles removed from either Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The Secret Window, or the Pirates of the Caribbean chronicles (well, not SO far away from "pirates") - director Marc Forster and screenwriter David Magee's fanciful Finding Neverland takes a wide-eyed innocent's view of the world as a place where childhood never ends; where adults in the room are the ones with the hang-ups, while the kids, like birds, are free to let their imaginations run wild.
One adult in particular, a Mr. James Matthew Barrie (the Johnny Depp character) is, in reality, a kid at heart. Based on an episode in Scottish-born novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie's own life and career, the plot of Finding Neverland focuses on his attempts to write a successful stage play.
Although, in actuality, Barrie was already a celebrated author, the film emphasizes his inability, at first, to attract an audience for his convoluted theater productions - much to his producer's consternation. The producer, Charles Frohman (played by Dustin Hoffman with a not-too-convincing, fading in-and-out British accent), is at his wit's end, trying to eke out a profit from his protégé's repeated duds.
But Barrie has other concerns. His stiff-upper-lip society spouse Mary (Rahda Mitchell) is all about keeping up appearances. They sleep in separate bedrooms and lead separate lives. You know, your typical upper-crust British couple, all Victorian reserve and highfaluting manners. "Mustn't do this, James. Mustn't do that. What will the neighbors think?" Yadda, yadda, yadda...
Barrie doesn't bother to attend the premiere of his most recent fiasco. He's too busy inside his own head to worry about what others think. Into his life comes Mrs. Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (a subdued Kate Winslet), an attractive widow with four young sons and another of those harpy-like British matriarchs, the over-protective Mrs. Emma du Maurier (the marvelously cutting and still-captivating Julie Christie). A platonic relationship soon develops between Mrs. Llewelyn Davies and Mr. Barrie, with the boys the primary focus of their concern.
One of the lads, the super-serious Peter (Freddie Highmore, in a masterful performance), misses his late father to distraction. You see, Peter's the realist, and the most pragmatic of the bunch. As Barrie tries his best to establish himself as someone the boys can rely on, Peter fights his efforts tooth and nail. The older boys take to the whimsical Barrie from the start - his earnestness can be quite reassuring. But Peter's growing tendency to throw cold water on their budding acquaintanceship betrays long-buried issues involving repression of hurt feelings and his unresolved loss of a loved one.
In our day, such a man-boy association would be treated with "kid gloves," in view of the countless scandals (among others) reported about pedophile priests that has rocked the Catholic Church in this country and abroad. In the movie, rumor and innuendo regarding Barrie's closeness to the Llewelyn Davies children are surreptitiously whispered about town. Those rumors not only trouble Barrie's snooty wife, buy the widowed Sylvia and her mother as well.
Leave it to surrogate daddy Depp to step in and play this one straight. His acting assumption (and lightly-accented Scottish "burr") is spot-on ideal. Staying in character throughout and never grandstanding to prove a point, Johnny's built-in naïveté charms the screen family, to a point, with his sincerity and childlike wonderment.
As the plot machinations move along, we too are enchanted by Barrie's visions. Soon, he gets the brilliant notion of creating a character out of his harmless dalliance: Peter Pan, a boy (very much like himself) who never grew up and who leads a life of adventure, to encompass fairies, pirates, Indians, mermaids, and pixie dust in a magical place he calls Neverland. This is where the picture ultimately "takes off" on its own coattails - and where the boys, including the skeptical Peter, begin to notice that they have become part of Barrie's latest experiment.
Trying to convince his producer into financing another flop is only one of Barrie's hurdles. Another is making sure that society audiences are more receptive to this venture than to his previous doomed efforts. As such, Barrie takes out a little insurance: he sprinkles the first-night audience with ragamuffins from the local orphanage. Enjoying the production to the hilt, the orphans' spontaneity and mirth at the premiere of Peter Pan are infectious. This results in a triumph from beginning to end.
When several audience members at the post-premiere gala ask young Peter if he served as inspiration for the title character, the boy immediately insists that Barrie, not he, is the real Peter Pan. And he's right, of course. One problem solved, one more to tackle.
But the big payoff is still to come. The ending (and there are two of them, quite frankly) involves the stricken Sylvia, who is deathly ill and unable to attend the premiere. In a fantasy-inspired sequence, but one that will take your breath away, Barrie has the first-night cast recreate Peter Pan in Sylvia's home. Suspension of disbelief is called for here, but viewers attuned to the director's internal logic will succumb to this fabulous sequence. Neverland materializes as a living, breathing place, not only in Barrie's imagination but in Sylvia's living quarters. She strolls off in the end with her boys to find peace and solace in this wonderful spot.
The final minutes take us to Sylvia's funeral. Mrs. Du Maurier, as stern and businesslike as any bereaved matron would behave in her situation, informs Barrie that her daughter's last will and testament appoints both her and J.M. as the boys' guardian. She hasn't softened her approach (nor changed her opinion about him, either), but is at least willing to give this newly created association a shot.
Returning to the park bench where he first encountered the Llewelyn Davies clan, Barrie sits next to the downcast Peter. Their heartfelt exchange - an honest and open one, for once - will have you blubbering in your seat. It's one of Johnny and Freddie's finest cinematic encounters.
Working organically from the script, a straight-faced Depp feeds his lines to little Freddie, who reacts perfectly in time to his character's story arc. Freddie's tears flow naturally, as the boy comes to the realization that acceptance of loss is a part of life. We will always remember our loved ones in our mind's eye. Yet, we must move on from there to make use of what time is given to us.
With the exception of Edward Scissorhands, where Johnny's earlier film triumphs may have failed to move viewers emotionally, this one easily passed the acid test. Appearing with like-minded colleagues, there was lovely work overall from every cast member, especially Kate Winslet and the very talented Mr. Highmore.
Filmed in England, Finding Neverland was another milestone in Depp's British period pictures, earning nearly five times the cost of its production. He was even tapped for a Best Actor Oscar, his second nomination after Pirates of the Caribbean. The film also boasted a wonderfully enchanting Academy Award-winning music score by Polish composer Jan Kaczmarek. The story was later turned into a 2015 Broadway musical, adapted from the same source material as the film.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)No sooner was Finding Neverland in the can when Depp and Highmore were reunited a year later for the filming of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a re-imagination of the 1971 feature Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The earlier flick was billed as a musical fantasy, with words and music by the British songwriting team of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley ( Stop the World - I Want to Get Off). This updated version would adhere closely to the author's theme: that of a whimsical garden of chocolatey delights run by an eccentric tycoon.
Both film versions were tied to Roald Dahl's eponymously titled children's book. However, Burton's newest iteration, unlike its predecessor, would take a much darker view of the story. The emphasis, as the title suggests, would be placed on the boy Charlie Bucket (then-12-year-old Freddie Highmore) and his impoverished family of Buckets, who occupy a ramshackle, off-kilter Expressionist home flat in the middle of London town.
Shot at Pinewood Studios on the far outskirts of the city, with a tuneful score and witty song structures by frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman (the lyrics were taken directly from Dahl's writings), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory presented a primarily UK cast headed by Highmore and Irish-born actor David Kelly as Grandpa Joe. Johnny, of course, embodied the top-hatted, pasty-faced Willy.
Helena Bonham Carter co-starred as Mrs. Bucket (a test drive for her casting as Mrs. Lovett in 2007's Sweeney Todd), Noah Taylor (the teenage David Helfgott in Shine) played Mr. Bucket, with AnnaSophia Robb ( Bridge to Terabithia) as the ambitious Violet Beauregarde, Missi Pyle ( Big Fish) as Mrs. Beauregarde, Julia Winter as the spoiled brat Veruca Salt, James Fox as her accommodating "Daddy," Jordan Fry as video-gamer Mike Teavee, Adam Godley as Mr. Teavee, Philip Wiegratz as the chocolate-loving Augustus Gloop, Franziska Troegner as Mrs. Gloop, Brian Dunlop as young Willy Wonka, hard-working Deep Roy as the Oompa-Loompas (ALL of them!), Christopher Lee as Dr. Wilbur Wonka, and dancer, actor, choreographer, and costume designer Geoffrey Holder providing the lilting Trinidadian-accented narration.
Similarities abound twixt this production and Finding Neverland, as well as overt hints of Edward Scissorhands in the overall concept and design. Whereas the focus of Neverland involved a boy's difficulty in accepting a substitute parent, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the roles are reversed. Here, Depp, as renowned chocolatier Willy Wonka (a reference to the Juliette Binoche character in Chocolat), the self-made businessman and purportedly mature individual is the one who experiences post-traumatic issues concerning his dentist father Wilbur; while Charlie, the pre-pubescent schoolboy, is the genuine article.
Charlie's strength is in his goodness and honesty. He loves his down-to-earth parents and wholeheartedly worships his elderly grandparents (a feisty and comical foursome who share the same bed!). His generosity and selfless devotion to them and to what's right holds him in good stead. One telling aspect to young Charlie's persona is his upstanding moral authority, something that thoroughly puzzles Willy to no end.
After he lucks into purchasing the winning Golden Ticket that will enable him to spend a day at Mr. Wonka's fabled factory, Charlie insists on selling it so he can help his family out. Grandpa George (David Morris), the orneriest and wisest of the group, manages to talk some sense into the boy: "Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money." With plucky Grandpa Joe along for the ride, Charlie sets off on his factory adventure.
With the exception of Charlie, all of the so-called winners are monsters in disguise. Their parents, however, are no better. They are either easily manipulated automatons (the snooty Mr. Salt) or type A-personality go-getters (the obsessed with image Mrs. Beauregarde).
Later on, after the other ticket holders are eliminated one-by-selfish-one, a delighted Willy Wonka informs Charlie that his prize will be to come live and work in the chocolate factory - with the proviso that he leave his family behind. Will Charlie take him up on his offer? Not if director Burton has anything to say about it.
Audiences are taken on a trip down memory lane (er, Wonka's memories, that is), where we learn the cause of the chocolatier's childhood trauma. While shining the magnate's shoes, Charlie convinces Willy to let bygones be bygones. The scene of Dr. Wonka ("Lollipops. Ought to be called cavities on a stick!") and his estranged son Willy's belated reconciliation, where six-foot-five-inch Lee places his long-limbed arms around five-foot-nine-inch Johnny, is almost a carbon copy of Depp (as J.M. Barrie) embracing the bawling Freddie Highmore (as Peter) at the end of Finding Neverland.
And talk about controversy, the scuttlebutt that circulated at the time of the picture's release involved Depp's mimicking the looks and mannerisms of Michael Jackson (down to the gloved hand), which Johnny denied. Instead, Depp claimed he was channeling the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes (he also claimed it was an old high school teacher of his). Whoever Johnny based his performance on, the resultant box-office payoff assured the film's success; certainly, no one complained about the profits that poured into Warner Bros.' coffers.
Director Burton summed up his interest in filming the book with this quote from Mark Salisbury's Burton on Burton: "I responded to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because it respected the fact that children can be adults."
You'll get no argument from us on that point.
(End of Part Seven)
To be continued....
Copyright © 2019 by Josmar F. Lopes
