South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Going down a rabbit hole and never coming back
“Come Away” aims at a magical mashup of the legends of “Peter Pan” and “Alice in Wonderland” and so misses, it leaves one perplexed. It’s as if it meant to let fly an enchanted arrow at viewers’ hearts and instead grazed the armpit.
Peter (Jordan A. Nash) and Alice (Keira Chansa), along with big brother David (Reece Yates) enjoy an idyllic existence in a big house somewhere in the woods of Victorian England, making up pirate games all day. Dad (David Oyelowo) isa master craftsman, fashioning immaculate miniature ships forwealthy clients. Mom (Angelina Jolie) is nice, but her sister (Anna Chancellor) is the caricature of the overbearing, malignant aunt (a malignaunt?) who doesn’t have her own kids and works to take these kids away— for their own good, of course. Tragedy strikes and the family starts to comeapart. It gets dark.
But wait, isn’t this about “Peter Pan” and “Alice in Wonderland”?
Well, yeah, kind of. Fans will enjoy the bountiful Easter eggs there for the hunting. But unlike, say, “Troy’s” criminally underrated, god-free take on Greekmythology, “Come Away” strips away the magic— then wanders deep into the woods and gets lost. What it’s trying to say about the J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll stories, perhaps about their true meanings, is unclear. Perhaps it’s just a “what if?” take that ties the legends together? The forest is lost among the trees.
What a cast, though. The kids are all fine—
Yates, in particular, flashes charisma. Oyelowo radiates fatherly warmth. But that’s not all— Gugu Mbatha-Raw frames the story and narrates; David Gyasi and Derek Jacobi showup; even Michael Caine deals himself in. “Come Away” is directed by Brenda Chapman of Disney/Pixar’s “Brave,” and it’s the first feature for screenwriter Marissa Kate Goodhill.
The more I think about “Come Away,” the more tragic it becomes, and I don’t think that’s intentional. I summarized it tomy kids, and it came out nightmarishly. The ending that seems meant to be wistful, even magical, reads instead as appalling, lamentable, gloomy, however youwant to say “the opposite of wondrous and happy.” Yet the music, the performances, the visual effects insist this is lovely. This is fine. Is it intended to be a bitterly ironic exposé of a family’s disintegration? Maybe.
But let’s talk a little about these parents. The going gets tough, and they get going down some deep rabbit holes of their own. For one (maybe both), addiction is a plot
device but not explored as part of the person. They do terribly destructive things instead of helping the kids cope. Maybe “malignaunt” has a point. That might be why the kids retreat into worlds of fantasy, but that’s an awfully pitch-black take on Pan and Alice (though it wouldn’t be the first). There’s even an explainer of Alice’s trippy adventure that involves distraught Mom’s mysterious potion. Let’s just say of these parents that Child Protective Services wouldn’t be laudin’ ’em.
“Come Away” takes some big swings, and for that, a tip of the elfin cap. And let’s not brush aside its diversity— this kind of revisionist fictional Victorian England is welcome, why not? Not everyone believes Santa Claus, for instance, must be white. But sadly, themovie stumbles on itsway to fantasyland.
MPAA rating: PG (for strong thematic content, some violence, fantasy action, and unsettling images) Running time: 1:34 Available: In general release where theaters are open; also available onVOD