Peter Pan is one of the richest and most-enduring of contemporary myths. An instant success, the story immediately became (like that of Sherlock Holmes) larger than its author, larger than any particular variation, and subject to the sort of collective ownership and shaping that is the essential quality of folklore or cultural mythology. Deep waters are plumbed here: matters of life, death and sex, of childishness vs childlikeness, an appetite for the eternal vs selfishness, faith vs denial and both vis-à-vis imagination and art. New generations continue to feed upon the myth of Peter Pan, further working out its implications and mining its richness. Even a film like Hook, of admittedly faulty execution, is worthwhile as a continuing meditation upon Pan.

Finding Neverland is based on the play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" (by Allan Knee) which presumes to tell the story of author J. M. Barrie's creation of Pan in the context of his life, especially his relationship with a particular family. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball)'s film version is introduced by the blank check "Inspired by True Events": there will be plenty of work here for those love to judge a fiction by its source. Let's just say the true story was more complicated and focus instead upon the myth — both the myth of Peter Pan, and the one created here about J. M. Barrie. The strategy involves reflecting back the myth of Pan into Barrie's history, and showing the playwrite draw upon his circumstances and character to create the story he was born to write. The tale told here has Barrie — who himself dreads growing up — dissatisfied with the stifling grown-up life of the theater-world and an unhappy marriage. He meets a young widow named Sylvia Llewelyn Davies and her four young boys when he is drawn into make-believe games with the latter in — where else? — Kensington Gardens. From there, we see how real life becomes grist for Peter Pan. Barrie's relationship with the woman and her sons provokes a bit of scandal, but things are nevertheless played here as innocent all around (like, apparently, the real story and unlike the alleged doings at the neither so innocently nor coincidentally-named Neverland Ranch). Indeed, "Uncle Jim" becomes a part of the family, and takes a special interest in young Peter, whose response to his father's recent death is, to quote Uncle Jim, "growing up too soon."

J. M. Barrie is played in the film by Johnny Depp, who might be seen as another boy who won't grow up. But while Depp's career is filled with unconventional and whimsical characters, his career choices are probably less whimsical than shrewd. Still, I find Depp more convincing as a figure of childlike wonder — in films like Pirates of the Caribbean or Edward Scissorhands — than as an embodiment of it. At times the sense of "play" here seems a little forced, as attempts to deliberately capture the sense of play can tend to be. Dustin Hoffman, in a role that is mostly just an intertextual reference (he played the title character in Hook) plays Barrie's producer-partner Charles Frohman, notes that critics have taken the fun out of theater by taking too seriously something that is, after all, called "play". But pre-emptive shots at critics notwithstanding, there is a difference between a Chestertonian love of wonder and play and attempts to imitate it, and for awhile the effect is of a meticulous and earnest rain dance without result.

But then something begins to happen: Pan begins to stir. When the actors led by Barrie have the first run through of his new play, I sat up in my chair. When what seemed to be drifting toward a predictable and possibly maudlin ending suddenly began channelling the real Peter Pan myth, I found myself floating above the edge of my seat. Indeed, the pixie dust manages to shake loose from the myth at the heart of this story and scatters over the rest of the film, and so it rises out of both contrived situation and emotion and takes flight. The film is weaker the farther the script gets from the real Peter Pan, but once it gets off the ground, it keeps going — past the first star to the right and straight on til morning. Finding Neverland gathers the pieces of the ritual slowly, but it manages to get things right to create a familiar magic: the bittersweet stab of longing for the eternal overlayed with the poignance of our earth-bound condition.

This exquisitely-constructed French comedy strikes me as the kind of film a Hollywood studio might seize upon to remake, with the unhappy result of turning into an Egg McMuffin something that began as a delicate soufflé. In other words, what might be predictable in the wrong hands is kept light and airy here — sweet, but not too sweet, with subtle variations of flavor. But it's not so subtle that it loses its sense of romance and fun. The story opens in a busy restaurant, Chez Jean, where head waiter Antoine is a master of improvising: he thinks on his feet, rolls with the circumstances and makes sure everyone is happy. One night, Antoine is caught up in a situation that stretches these skills to the limit. He meets Louis, trying to hang himself from a tree. What begins as a sort of impulsive Good Samaritanism on Antoine's part, becomes an endless comedy of errors: Antoine's efforts to contain things merely leads him from one problem to another, entangling his life with Louis, and Louis's pretty ex-girlfriend, Blanche. Among other things, Antoine gets Louis a job as sommelier at Chez Jean, but at some point all his efforts to help Louis by setting him back on his feet and reuniting him with Blanche seem insignificant compared to another little problem that has arisen: Antoine has fallen for Blanche. The chemistry between these two actors is delightful. Antoine's gentle and sad (if slightly bug) -eyed improviser is played by Daniel Auteuil, whose breakthrough role was as the younger of the two shifty neighbors in Jean de Florette. José Garcia plays the manic-depressive obsessive-compulsive Louis as a wide-eyed innocent, lost and pitiable in a Little Tramp sort of way. Their scenes together and with Sandrine Kimberlain's waiflike florist Blanche, make for a delightful love triangle. Of course, for all the laughs, we know that a showdown is coming: hearts must necessarily be broken. But bittersweet is still sweet, and Apres Vous serves up this combination of flavors in a satisfying way. Great date movie.

On a day when I had three press screenings scheduled — two Hollywoods and one international — I looked forward to Les Choristes as an oasis in the desert. Instead, I found myself actually liking one of the Hollywood films okay and learned that even the French can make predictable, formulaic, treacly films, too. Miramax has snapped up this film and it will be marketed in the U.S. as an international film that people accustomed mostly to Hollywood might enjoy, but that's mainly because it is, essentially, a Hollywood film with subtitles. The thing is, I don't even really need to summarize the plot because you've heard it before. Les Choristes is a school story: To Sir, With Love by way of Mr. Holland's Opus and The Bad News Bears. A new teacher in postwar France faces a private school classroom of the most unmanageable students he's ever seen. He hits upon the idea of starting a choir as a way of reaching them. There are joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, troublemakers and breakthroughs, the program is threatened with shutdown by the authorities, and it all ends in a soaring choir performance. I actually scribbled down my predictions for the unfolding the story as I watched and marveled at how much I got right. No doubt even a cliché has a basis in truth, and as long as one senses the filmmaker is a true believer in what he's saying, even if its been said before, it's easier to let it pass. But this film tips its hand when we see its attitude of disposability toward characters: a "problem" student is brought in and out of the story only as needed, and cast off carelessly when he's done his part to move the plot toward the heartwarming climax. Gérard Jugnot as Clément Mathieu is actually somebody you'd enjoy having as your teacher; but he's only one of several actors and characters wasted in a script and treatment that aspires to pass on universal values but doesn't rise higher than rote repetition.