One man’s escape from the darkness of adulthood

“All characters, whether grown-ups or babes, must wear a child’s outlook as their only important adornment,� wrote Scottish playwright J.M. Barrie in the stage directions for “Peter Pan.� This directive became a guiding principle for “Finding Neverland,� Marc Forster’s unabashedly loving, and largely fictionalized, take on Barrie’s relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, who inspired his most famous work.

“Finding Neverland� sees the world through the eyes of both a child and an inner child, but happily neither set of orbs has been forced to look through the funhouse filter of “childlike wonder� as depicted in cereal commercials and the works of Robin Williams. On the contrary, “Finding Neverland� is gently seductive, genuinely tender and often moving without being maudlin. As portrayed by Forster (“Monster’s Ball�) and screenwriter David Magee, childhood is a happy, innocent time so fraught with danger and powerlessness it compels regular escape into fantasy.

This is what makes Barrie’s gift of Neverland to the Llewelyn Davies boys so important. A successful, if lately uninspired, playwright in a stagnant, childless marriage with his remote, unhappy wife Mary (Radha Mitchell), Barrie (Johnny Depp) is just coming off a flop and at a loss for what to do next.

You can tell he’s a fun kind of guy by the way he teases an usher, played by “The Office’s� Mackenzie Crook, into admitting the play’s a dud, and by the contraption he’s devised from a fishing pole to play catch with his dog in Hyde Park.

But at home he smolders like a just-snuffed candle. Until he meets the Llewelyn Davies boys and their recently widowed mother, Sylvia (Kate Winslet), one afternoon in the park, his spark seems nearly extinguished. There’s a moment early on when he and Mary ascend the stairs at the end of the day, pause in front of their respective rooms and open their doors. Mary’s door opens on her furniture, but Barrie’s opens onto a sunlit field.

“Finding Neverland� is the story of a childlike man who teaches a man-like child how to take off his hat and stay in boyhood a while. Traumatized by his father’s death and worried about the health of his mother, an anxious Peter (Freddie Highmore) strains at the limitations of his age. Barrie’s ability to empathize with Peter -- he lost a brother in childhood -- is what endears him to the boy, whose sense of loss is palpable. At first, he’s immune to Barrie’s uncly charm. When the famous playwright invites the boys to watch as he dances with a circus bear -- namely, his dog, Porthos -- Peter snaps to his mother, “This is absurd. Why did you bring me here? It’s just a dog.� Gradually, though, Barrie wins Peter over by treating him like a grown-up, and then taking the edge off with pirate stories. Highmore is fierce as a kid who’s lost one parent and knows he’s about to lose another. (Sylvia keeps waving off her fits as “a chest cold,� but from the sound of the first ladylike cough, we know she’s a goner.)

Despite his identification with youth, Depp’s Barrie is no antic man-child. Nor is he a mugging creep, which is a huge relief, considering the precedent. Depp never stoops to juvenile behavior, never turns himself into the butt of the joke. Instead, he portrays that rare adult who can relate to kids without pandering or condescending. Barrie’s genial American producer Charles Frohman, played by Dustin Hoffman, displays a similar quality. And Frohman’s unquestioning financial support allows Barrie to create something true.

It’s hard to imagine Barrie and the bohemian Sylvia played by another pair of actors. Depp and Winslet share a rare combination of airiness, earthiness and sharp, wry intelligence. With his gleaming black hair, quiet grace and molten eyes, Depp makes Barrie’s ability to conjure imaginary worlds seem magical. At times, “Finding Neverland� resembles Peter Jackson’s “Heavenly Creatures,� also starring Winslet, in the way it depicts fantasy intruding on reality.

Sylvia’s warmth seems to ground the more mercurial Barrie in a way Mary can’t. No wonder their immediate attraction scares Mary rigid, as it does Sylvia’s mother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie). Sylvia and Barrie are made for each other; though this is not immediately apparent, which is of a part with the movie’s quiet, gentle charm. Their connection is intellectual and artistic rather than sexual, so there are no scenes of fulminating passion here, or even many smoldering glances. It’s the rare film that manages to convey love between adults without resorting to sex serving as shorthand. That Sylvia and Barrie’s feelings for each other come across as well as they do is an accomplishment. Winslet has long cultivated her image as a hardy English rose tramping ruddily through fantasy worlds as enchanting as they are dangerous, and it pays off here. This may not be her most adventurous part, but even in a domesticated role she has a sort of swashbuckling presence, cemented throughout a career devoted to romantic rebels and rebellious romantics.

Barrie’s sudden devotion to the Llewelyn Davies boys, and the long afternoons spent playing cowboys and Indians with them soon begin to arouse the suspicions of more than just his wife and Sylvia’s mother. As Barrie’s friend Arthur Conan Doyle (Ian Hart) informs him one afternoon during a cricket match, people are starting to talk, and not just about his relationship with Sylvia.

This is the only mention of the pedophilia rumors that have since dogged the playwright’s reputation. In the film, at any rate, a less sensational explanation for Barrie’s lack of interest in his own family and his attraction to another is made obvious enough. By Edwardian standards, Sylvia is practically a flower child, while Mary is exactly the kind of grown-up Barrie doesn’t want to be: status-conscious and conventional.

What Barrie shares with Peter, though, is precisely what’s sorely missing from most cloying Hollywood depictions of childhood -- an unerring phoniness detector. It’s in this detail that “Finding Neverland� hits the young-at-heart nail most squarely on the head.

Sentimental as it is -- and do pack a hanky -- “Finding Neverland� is closer in spirit to the dark meditation on the passage of time and the compromises of adulthood that are at the heart of “Peter Pan� than to the cult of immaturity usually attributed to the play.

*

‘Finding Neverland’

*

MPAA rating: PG for mild thematic elements and brief language

Times guidelines: It’s a tear-jerker, for kids!

Johnny Depp...J.M. Barrie

Kate Winslet...Sylvia Llewelyn Davies

Dustin Hoffman...Charles Frohman

Freddie Highmore...Peter

Llewelyn Davies

Julie Christie...Emma du Maurier

Radha Mitchell...Mary Barrie

Miramax films presents a FilmColony production. Director Marc Forster. Executive producers Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Michelle Sy, Gary Binkow, Neal Israel. Produced by Richard N. Gladstein, Nellie Bellflower. Screenplay by David Magee, based on the play “The Man Who Was Peter Pan� by Allan Knee. Director of photography Roberto Schaefer. Editor Matt Chesse. Music by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Production Designer Gemma Jackson. Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne. Art director Peter Russell. Set decorator Trisha Edwards. Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

In selected theaters.