The movie Finding Neverland is about the writer J.M. Barrie and his journey of writing plays about imagination and happiness. Barrie has a close relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and her sons, who give Barrie the idea of the well-known play Peter Pan. J.M. Barrie attends the reception of his latest play, ‘Little Mary’ and from this reception he meets Sylvia, who is a widow now. Barrie enjoys spending time with Sylvia and her four sons, and through this proves to be a great playmate and father-figure for the boys. Sylvia’s mother, Emma du Maurier does not like the amount of time Barrie spends with her family. Emma wants to take control of her daughter and grandsons, since Sylvia is becoming very weak from an unidentified illness. As Sylvia becomes more and more ill, she is unable to attend Barrie’s new play production. However, Barrie arranges a mini-version of his new play to be presented at her home.
Finding Neverland can be interpreted using the archetypal literary criticism, as it does centre on the idea of the unconscious mind and its ability to hold and create universal symbols and patterns to which all humans can relate to. The archetypal hero character of this movie is playwright J.M. Barrie. Barrie, in the beginning of the movie, does not have any ideas of creating a new play. However, when he meets Sylvia’s four sons; George, Michael, Jack, and Peter, through their imagination, Barrie gets ideas. The imagination starts, when Barrie meets the Llewelyn family at London’s Kensington Gardens, while walking his St. Bernard dog. Ever since that day, Barrie has been spending a lot of time with Sylvia and her sons, creating imaginary worlds of pirates, castles and cowboys. For Barrie to create these imaginary worlds for the children, they cheer up and enjoy the time, since they do not have a father anymore. Apart from all this fun and enjoyment, there is a femme fatale character who is Emma du Maurier, the mother of