The timeless story of Peter Pan is reimagined in the wildly inventive and engrossing Wendy from director Benh Zeitlin. But the real treasure of the film is young star Devin France who bedazzles and electrifies the screen as the titular character.
Lost on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, the fabled Wendy must fight to save her brothers, gain her freedom, and retain the joyous spirit of youth all while constantly battling the deadly specter of adulthood in this enchanting film from Searchlight Pictures, and the director of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Simply put, this is not the legend of Peter Pan you may be familiar with. This is a new vision of the character from a gifted director, told primarily from the perspective of the character of Wendy, the young girl who accompanied Peter and the Lost Boys on their adventures and skirmishes against...
Lost on a mysterious island where aging and time have come unglued, the fabled Wendy must fight to save her brothers, gain her freedom, and retain the joyous spirit of youth all while constantly battling the deadly specter of adulthood in this enchanting film from Searchlight Pictures, and the director of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Simply put, this is not the legend of Peter Pan you may be familiar with. This is a new vision of the character from a gifted director, told primarily from the perspective of the character of Wendy, the young girl who accompanied Peter and the Lost Boys on their adventures and skirmishes against...
- 3/15/2020
- by Mike Tyrkus
- CinemaNerdz
Over the last few years the “Mouse House” has gone “all in” on doing live-action remakes of their Animated features film classics. Now we’re not talking about the Pixar flicks, though CGI has certainly been enlisted to give the more fantastic elements. Though it stuns me to say it, kudos to the Hollywood Foreign Press and their Golden Globe awards for pointing out that one such remake was not “live-action” but rather a computer-animated feature. These raids of the Disney “vault” target mainly their 1937 to mid-1990s output. Last year was almost a deluge with digital “re-do’s” of Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King, with Lady And The Tramp streaming on the Disney+ app. Ah, but one hasn’t been “tech’d up”. Maybe because it originated in live-action, on stage because unlike most of the classic fairy tales it’s just a bit over a century old.
- 3/12/2020
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Wendy director Benh Zeitlin on Liza Minnelli’s scream (as Sally Bowles) the moment the train goes by in Bob Fosse’s Cabaret: "I’ve always loved that moment. That character is so wild, like such a great ferocious liberated woman character.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the final instalment of my in-depth conversation with Benh Zeitlin at the Bowery Hotel in New York, we discussed how he developed a relationship between Shay Walker (mother Angela Darling) and Tommie Lynn Milazzo, who plays her baby Wendy, casting the twins Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin, and working with his sister Eliza Zeitlin on their “shared vision” for Wendy, shot by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (Josephine Decker’s Shirley) and starring Devin France as the adolescent Wendy.
Devin France, Gavin Naquin, Gage Naquin, Romyri Ross, and Yashua Mack in Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy
Herbert Brenon’s 1924 silent Peter Pan, my favourite adaptation of Jm Barrie’s play,...
In the final instalment of my in-depth conversation with Benh Zeitlin at the Bowery Hotel in New York, we discussed how he developed a relationship between Shay Walker (mother Angela Darling) and Tommie Lynn Milazzo, who plays her baby Wendy, casting the twins Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin, and working with his sister Eliza Zeitlin on their “shared vision” for Wendy, shot by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen (Josephine Decker’s Shirley) and starring Devin France as the adolescent Wendy.
Devin France, Gavin Naquin, Gage Naquin, Romyri Ross, and Yashua Mack in Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy
Herbert Brenon’s 1924 silent Peter Pan, my favourite adaptation of Jm Barrie’s play,...
- 3/10/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Chicago – The Peter Pan mythos is as well known as any legend, ever since J.M. Barrie invented the character in 1904. Through nearly a hundred versions in virtually all media, the theme remains the same … what happens if we never grow up. Benh Zeitlin adds his spin in “Wendy,” the follow-up to his Oscar nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (2012).
The Explorer: Devin France is the Title Character in ‘Wendy’
Photo credit: Searchlight Pictures
“Wendy” focuses on the title character, portrayed with wide-eyed wonder by Devin France. She is portrayed as the modern-day daughter of a single mother, flanked by her twin brothers Douglas and James (Gage and Gavin Naquin). The austere family lives by a train depot, and the three siblings are tempted by a mysterious child rail rider named Peter (Yashua Mack) to run away. They travel to a mysterious island, where the inhabitants never grow up. The...
The Explorer: Devin France is the Title Character in ‘Wendy’
Photo credit: Searchlight Pictures
“Wendy” focuses on the title character, portrayed with wide-eyed wonder by Devin France. She is portrayed as the modern-day daughter of a single mother, flanked by her twin brothers Douglas and James (Gage and Gavin Naquin). The austere family lives by a train depot, and the three siblings are tempted by a mysterious child rail rider named Peter (Yashua Mack) to run away. They travel to a mysterious island, where the inhabitants never grow up. The...
- 3/4/2020
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
“Wendy,” Benh Zeitlin’s riff on the iconic Peter Pan tale, was something he dreamed about making his entire life. “Me and my sister Eliza, who I wrote the film with, really dreamed about making this film our entire lives, and it evolved as we grew up,” Zeitlin told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think that when we looked back at all of our games we played as children, where you were in a world and when you became 13 you were out — you were kicked out of it. In our childhood world, you know, we looked at adults and we just thought, how could that happen to us? What are we gonna lose that’s going turn us into who we are now, which is wild and free and imaginative and what’s gonna turn us into people that we don’t recognize? People who are destroying the planet,...
- 3/2/2020
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
The specialty box office is headed towards the second star on the right and straight on till morning with Benh Zeitlin’s magical adventure Wendy, a fresh reimagination of J. M. Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan. The pic from Searclight Pictures is Zeitlin’s follow up to his Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild which was released in 2012.
Co-written by Zeitlin and his sister Eliza, Wendy isn’t necessarily cut from the same cloth from Disney animated feature, rather it speaks to Zeitlin’s hyperealstic aesthtetic. The film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year, stars newcomer Devin France in the titular role of Wendy, based on the heroine Wendy Darling of Peter Pan. In Zeitlin’s vision of Neverland, Wendy and her friends get whisked away by a boy named Peter where they get lost on a mysterious island where no one ages and time stands still.
Co-written by Zeitlin and his sister Eliza, Wendy isn’t necessarily cut from the same cloth from Disney animated feature, rather it speaks to Zeitlin’s hyperealstic aesthtetic. The film, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year, stars newcomer Devin France in the titular role of Wendy, based on the heroine Wendy Darling of Peter Pan. In Zeitlin’s vision of Neverland, Wendy and her friends get whisked away by a boy named Peter where they get lost on a mysterious island where no one ages and time stands still.
- 2/28/2020
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Wendy director Benh Zeitlin on the Montserrat volcano: "Every time I would go back there I had to rewrite the script because things would just be growing at this rate that’s exponential. It’s so fertile and so alive.”
Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, a free-range take on Jm Barrie’s classic story of Peter Pan, co-written with his sister Eliza Zeitlin, who is also the production designer, has Wendy Darling living with her single mother (Shay Walker) and twin brothers James and Douglas (Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin) above the diner they run right by the railroad tracks in rural Louisiana.
Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Wendy director Benh Zeitlin (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on nature: "There are things on this Earth that are so awesome, they’re unexplainable the same way magic is.” Photo: Sam Fetner
One night, the three kids hop on the roof of a freight train,...
Benh Zeitlin’s Wendy, a free-range take on Jm Barrie’s classic story of Peter Pan, co-written with his sister Eliza Zeitlin, who is also the production designer, has Wendy Darling living with her single mother (Shay Walker) and twin brothers James and Douglas (Gavin Naquin and Gage Naquin) above the diner they run right by the railroad tracks in rural Louisiana.
Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Wendy director Benh Zeitlin (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on nature: "There are things on this Earth that are so awesome, they’re unexplainable the same way magic is.” Photo: Sam Fetner
One night, the three kids hop on the roof of a freight train,...
- 2/28/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Who knew that “Beasts of the Southern Wild” was not just a nervy, thrilling debut film, but a design for living?
Director Benh Zeitlin suggests as much with “Wendy,” his second feature, which arrived eight years after “Beasts” took the 2012 Sundance Film Festival by storm on its way to Best Picture and Best Director Oscar nominations.
That film was the uproarious chronicle of a feral young girl, Hushpuppy, who lived in a ramshackle community (“the Bathtub”) in the swamps of the southern U.S., resisting the constraints of civilization at every turn. “Wendy,” which also premiered at Sundance, begins on the outskirts of civilization, in a small diner right by the side of the train tracks, and then finds a way to escape into a wild, exuberant and dangerous utopia.
Oh, and it’s a riff on “Peter Pan,” and on the whole idea of storytelling and the power of myth.
Director Benh Zeitlin suggests as much with “Wendy,” his second feature, which arrived eight years after “Beasts” took the 2012 Sundance Film Festival by storm on its way to Best Picture and Best Director Oscar nominations.
That film was the uproarious chronicle of a feral young girl, Hushpuppy, who lived in a ramshackle community (“the Bathtub”) in the swamps of the southern U.S., resisting the constraints of civilization at every turn. “Wendy,” which also premiered at Sundance, begins on the outskirts of civilization, in a small diner right by the side of the train tracks, and then finds a way to escape into a wild, exuberant and dangerous utopia.
Oh, and it’s a riff on “Peter Pan,” and on the whole idea of storytelling and the power of myth.
- 2/27/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
It’s been eight years since Benh Zeitlin made his astonishing feature-directing debut with Beasts of the Southern Wild, a low-budget landmark set on the bayous of Louisiana that won Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress (for its extraordinary nine-year-old star Quvenzhané Wallis), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay nods. Now, at 37, Zeitlin is back with Wendy, his folkloric spin on J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan that top-lines Wendy Darling, the Victorian girl who flew off to Neverland to mother an island’s worth of lost boys. If you...
- 2/26/2020
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
Back in 2012, a young filmmaker by the name of Benh Zeitlin burst on to the scene with Beasts of the Southern Wild. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie blew away audiences, going on to be a darling of the awards season, even scoring four Academy Award nominations. Zeitlin himself picked up a pair of Oscar nods (Best Director and Best Original Screenplay), firmly entrenching him as someone to watch out for. What would he do next? Well, it took until Sundance 2020 for his follow up to arrive, and now Wendy hits theaters this week. Unfortunately, while his unique aesthetic is still very much in evidence, there are diminishing returns this time around. Overly familiar, unfocused, and grindingly repetitive, this is very much a misfire from Zeitlin. The film is a retelling of Peter Pan, with the gritty and grounded, yet fantastical, approach that Beasts of the Southern Wild also employed.
- 2/25/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
“Wendy,” Benh Zeitlin’s riff on the iconic Peter Pan tale, was something he dreamed about making his entire life.
“Me and my sister Eliza, who I wrote the film with, really dreamed about making this film our entire lives, and it evolved as we grew up,” Zeitlin told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think that when we looked back at all of our games we played as children, where you were in a world and when you became 13 you were out — you were kicked out of it. In our childhood world, you know, we looked at adults and we just thought, how could that happen to us? What are we gonna lose that’s going turn us into who we are now, which is wild and free and imaginative and what’s gonna turn us into people that we don’t recognize? People who are destroying the planet,...
“Me and my sister Eliza, who I wrote the film with, really dreamed about making this film our entire lives, and it evolved as we grew up,” Zeitlin told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at the Sundance Film Festival. “I think that when we looked back at all of our games we played as children, where you were in a world and when you became 13 you were out — you were kicked out of it. In our childhood world, you know, we looked at adults and we just thought, how could that happen to us? What are we gonna lose that’s going turn us into who we are now, which is wild and free and imaginative and what’s gonna turn us into people that we don’t recognize? People who are destroying the planet,...
- 2/11/2020
- by Beatrice Verhoeven
- The Wrap
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