In these times of violent, sex-ridden entertainment this movie was refreshing. The story is intensely acted, the soundtrack fit the scenes emotionally, the colors are intense and vibrant. Watch this and please enjoy. The story is easy to follow, even with the flashbacks. The emotions are well portrayed by each actor. The soundtrack fit the scenes and brought me on an emotional "ride". The scenes with the filters of light and color are quite appropriate. The storyline is unpredictable without the usual Hollywood formula that I, personally, have grown sick of. This movie makes one - anyone - feel special, despite the imperfections and ghosts that lurk beneath our emotional shields.

Neverwas is a muddled film that reduces the heartbreak of the disease of schizophrenia to a fanciful lark of literary imagination and children's fanciful dreams. Gabriel (Ian McKellan) is a hospitalized mental patient whose terrors of childhood abuse has driven him away from society and into the forest where he has constructed a kingdom of Neverwas. Zack (Aaron Eckhardt) is a psychiatrist who leaves an academic career to take a position in a small mental hospital where his celebrated writer/father Tom was committed and where he encounters Gabriel, who recognizes Zack as the child of the Neverwas myth. Haunted by the mythic story of Zack Small, the boy hero of his father's best seller children's book, also titled "Neverwas," Zack attempts to bring peace to the troubled minds of the mental patients and understand the clues which Gabriel delights in leaving for him. Attempting to piece together in a non-linear route of discovery, despite night terrors, and maniacal enchantment Zack's task is to outwit the system of stifling bureaucratic medicine, legal blockades, and commercial exploitation of Neverwas through Gabriel's clues.If this begins to sound like a pitch for a feel-good, warm and fuzzy commercial spot it abounds in the film. With a superb cast of Jessica Lange as Zack's bruised alcoholic mother who can't forget her dead husband, Brittany Murphy as a reporter, Alan Cummings, and William Hurt as the hospital's administrator, Neverwas rambles toward a showdown in which Gabriel escapes to lead Zack on a merry chase back to the primeval landscape to revive his spirit of freedom from responsibility in a never ending playtime. While the premise of father-son reconciliation, redemption, forgiveness, and fulfillment weaves through the film, it is never achieved as the reality of the disease of schizophrenia can never be overlooked, and is anything but a playful romp in the forest green. The brilliant McKellen simply re-enacts his Gandalf personality with too much reliance on the seven dwarfs to come to the rescue. As the police surround the trash-heap towers Gabriel has erected on privately owned forest lands, the notion of squatters rights, eco-terrorism, and forest service clear cutting looms over the delusional situation that threaten to stop Gabriel's fantasy life. Nevertheless, this is Hollywood which requires an upbeat ending. The improbability of salvation for the kingdom, the king, and the crown prince from the scourge of mental illness is forgotten and they all live happily ever after is the ultimate absurdity.

I thought one of the best things about this film was its score. Philip Glass is no second rate composer, that's for sure. And his score certainly adds richness to the film. I'd never heard of the film until I saw it offered on DVD. And after watching it I was amazed by some of the very negative reviews from film critics when it was originally released. The performances were all quite good, especially Sir Ian McKellan's. Looking at the cast list it seems like some of the characters were cut from the finished version. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a director's original cut of this? I really enjoyed the fantasy vs. real life theme of the film. I think we all could use a Neverwas to escape to once in awhile.

I've seen a few movies about "magical reality" -- that fantasy zone where fairy tales and the real world cross, forcing jaded adults and child-like idealists to war over the relevance of imagination in a world full of disappointment. Most recently, "Big Fish," "Finding Neverland" and "Gods and Monsters" spring to mind. Then there's "Neverwas," a film so full of unnecessary flash and "magical reality" clichés that it shames the stories from which it pilfered its name... namely J.M. Barie's tales of Neverland and Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere." And while "Neverwas" never will be remembered as fondly as those tales, it does manage to skim off the top of their inspiration and come up with a flimsy, smug movie that mimics much better movies."Neverwas" gives us the jaded adult, the insightful madman, the understanding girlfriend, flashes of light, rain storms of glitter and... nothing else. It's a hollow movie that has seen other, better movies and is trying, in vain, to ape them. And it's written by a writer who's read lots of fairy tales but can't seem to create a convincing one himself. It's a wonder that so many good actors were coaxed into this production. I can think of at least six good fantasy films starring Ian McKellen. And "Neverwas" is definitely not one of them. "Neverwas" is a flashy shell of a movie... like a karaoke singer who knows the words but not the music.