Wendy

Available digitally today!

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The first great movie on 2020 is here in Benh Zeitlin's magical and inventive re-telling of "Peter Pan."

"Wendy" takes a similar aesthetic from Zeitlin's Oscar-nominated "Beasts of the Southern Wild," which utilized magical realism to tell a story about a girl coming of age in the bayou. Here, a girl named Wendy (Devin France) goes through her own coming of age as she tries to figure out where she belongs.

Wendy lives with her twin brothers Douglas and James (Gage and Gavin Naquin) and their loving single mom Angela Darling (Shay Walker) in an apartment above the ramshackle diner Angela owns. Just feet away is a train stop that rattles the diner so much it feels otherworldly. And perhaps it is.

In this unnamed town, it is rather expected that growing up there will keep you there forever. Angela expects her kids will work at the diner and keep it going after she dies. But the kids aren't sure that's for them and even though they have comfort in the love of their mom and their town, they are at the age where they are antsy.

One night, Wendy is drawn to the rambling train and watches in fascination as a rambunctious young boy (Yashua Mack) dashes along the top of it, beckoning her to join him. She wakes up her brothers and just like the J.M. Barrie story before it, the three "fly" away to places unknown. Before they know it, they are leaping into a river and then traveling by rowboat to a mysterious volcanic island they have never known about. There, they run into a boy who disappeared 10 years earlier and who hasn't aged a day. This is all taken in stride as the three kids meet a gang of other lost boys and girls and spend their days running wild along the beach and in the swampland forests of the island.

The story of "Peter Pan" is front and center here, but Zeitlin tells his story in such a way that you find yourself searching for the connections rather than him spelling them out for you. His folding in of the character of Captain Hook is especially creative and works well in the context of this modern take.

While Zeitlin doesn't have any kids fly or battle "Indians" or a crocodile, he still adds a bit of magic in the form of a glowing sea beast named "Mother" that watches over the children. When we first meet her, it's a gorgeous, affecting moment that speaks to the magic in all of us.

While the pleasures of the film should be experienced without expectation, themes of family, courage, destiny, and disenchantment are all a part of the tapestry Zeitlin has created. He's assembled a group of fantastic actors, with France as Wendy and Walker as her mom doing especially good work.

Once again Dan Romer takes the reins on the music which, while reminiscent of "Beasts," gives the film even more magic and power. The cinematography by Sturla Brandth Gr�vlen is stunning in that it is both gritty and wondrous at the same time.

Some may think Zeitlin is leaning back against the canvas of his debut, but we don't say the same of Scorsese, who has been riffing on the same themes and playgrounds for years. It's a movie about finding your home but having to leave it in order to be certain of it. This is what Zeitlin does best, and, like Spielberg before him, he has created a modern-day fairy tale that is awe-inspiring, imaginative, and profoundly moving.