One of my personal favorite stories of all time is easily the one of the boy who never grew up. Peter Pan brought out magic and imagination. His creator, James Barrie took a chance at bringing a true tail of fairies to life and in Finding Neverland, Johnny Depp took a chance to portray the man behind the boy. A performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination. The film gives audiences some glimpse of Barrie's world and his inspirations for the fanciful characters that inhabit his timeless story.

Though somewhat fictional, Finding Neverland recounts the relationship between Barrie and the Davies family, a widow and her four boys, who became a clear outlet and inspiration for his imagination that tranformed into the eventual play, Peter and Wendy, otherwise known as Peter Pan. The movie is heartwarming, comical, and often whimsical family entertainment. It certainly should be a part of any family movie library for many reasons, not the least of which is its ability to show adults that it doesn't hurt to be a child now and again, especially around their children.

The DVD is presented in widescreen and available in a full screen edition with a Dolby Digital transfer, though the movie doesn't especially pronounce surround effects except for moments when we see through the eyes of Barrie and experience his imagination first hand.

Bonus features include director and producer commentary, deleted scenes, two behind the scenes featurettes and an outake reel. Historically speaking, Johnny Depp can be a riot on the set and we see a pinch of that in the outtake reel with flubbed lines and several goofy moments, including one unorthodox use of an on-set fart machine. The first of the two featurettes focuses on the history of Peter Pan and the story's many incarnations. Each of the celebrities recount their experience and memmories of the story and how it impacted them as children and adults. Moreover, the actors talk a bit about their offscreen relationships with each other and how much they enjoyed working with the crew. 20 minutes is devoted it seems to how much everyone loves Johnny Depp. The second featurette primarily shows the special effects shots and repeats many of the interviews shown in the previous featurette.

Commentary is provided by director Marc Forster, producer Richard Gladstein and writer David Magee. Although a bit dry at times, the filmmakers often reveal facts about Barrie's life you might not find unless you read a biography of the man. They talk about their experiences with the actors and film crew, pretty standard, but worth at least one listen to.

Overall, the film is certainly enjoyable and a good family film with bits of drama, comedy and fantasy all rolled into one. It's a little light on bonus features, though, off the top of my head I don't know what more they could have added.