Wendy (2020)
(On Cable TV, November 2020) In retrospect, I should have just stopped watching Wendy after five minutes, so quickly does the film establish its tone and technique in a way that I fundamentally dislike. I’m not against the central concept of the film—reimagining Peter Pan in a gritty semi-realistic contemporary take halfway between magical realism and low-budget filmmaking. Writer-director Benh Zeitlin impressed many with his debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild, and you can see the similarities here. Alas, the way Wendy is handled immediately rubbed me wrong, with languid pacing, twee-ethereal music, an irritating lack of medium shots and insistent innocence-of-childhood themes that quickly grate. I don’t like the original Peter Pan story all that much, so it could have gone either way—I have no attachment to the original story and would have enjoyed a different take, or it could have stuck too closely to the worst aspects of the original story. Unfortunately, while there’s some interest in seeing how the film recreates the familiar elements of J.M. Barrie’s story, it does stick to the aspects of it that annoyed me the most, almost going the Lord of the Flies route as it describes kids without adult supervision. Add to that the dirty handheld cinematography and I was clawing for the exits long before the film concluded (which, thanks to the interminable pacing, takes forever). It happens—most movies aren’t made for everyone, and it can happen that it strikes you wrong. Still, I did not enjoy my time with Wendy, and I’m going to be happy not every seeing it again.