2.35:1 Widescreen

As you might imagine, I am often asked for my opinion on the films I see. Inevitably I’m called upon to compare the film with some other work, which is at best quite unfair and at worst simply impossible to do. But I’ve gotten good at the game. So let us play it now. We’ll call Neverwas One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest meets Alice In Wonderland. Unfair, some might say, for they are actually the very same story. When you look at it carefully enough, they really are, although important differences do exist. My point i... all of this nonsense is this: There really is a razor fine line between insanity and fantasy. Neverwas blurs this distinction to an almost indefinable difference.

When Dr. Zack Riley (Eckhart) arrived at Millford Mental Health Institute, which once housed his father, he had no idea that his journey would take him full circle to a childhood he had been running from. Zack’s father (Nolte) was the author of a famous children’s story titled Neverwas. Zack has been running from Neverwas ever since. He changed his name and refused his inheritance of the book’s royalties. Here at Millford, Zack discovers a rather remarkable patient. Gabriel (McKellen) is not only intimately familiar with Neverwas and Zack himself, but claims to be her King. Zack finds himself confronted by a place he always believed came from his father’s imagination. It’s a wonderful story with an almost magical potential. Unfortunately this film takes too long to develop and never quite hits its stride. The film travels a trail of breadcrumbs laid out in such painstakingly slow motion that it is our patience and not our imagination that is finally put to the test. Writer/directors often commit the fatal sin of overcomplicating what often plays best in simpler terms. Joshua Michael Stern is guilty of it here. The film becomes too muddled, trying to show too much history and never trusting its audience enough to find their own way. You should know this IS NOT a children’s film.