Yesterday I finally rented the 2020 movie Come Away and I’ve watched the movie twice, and unfortunately I was disappointed!
Come Away is about a family, mom, dad, and three children, David, Peter, and Alice, and David dies, and the family has to deal with his death and the their own personal problems.
I know I just gave that brief summary of the movie but honestly I couldn’t really tell you what the movie is about! Or what the message of the movie is supposed to be! The writing is the main problem with this movie! The story and character motivations are all over the place!
When I first saw the trailer for Come Away, I thought it was about children imagining the stories of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland to deal with their problems, and the children’s names just happened to be Peter and Alice. But unfortunately, for the most part, that’s not what we get here.
I’m about to spoil Come Away, so if you don’t want spoilers but just want a recommendation, I say don’t watch this movie unless you’re really curious about it. If you just want to watch a family movie with magic and whimsy and just turn your brain off for a little while, then you can watch it, and it’s appropriate for kids so they can watch it too! But if you’re looking for a legitimately good Peter Pan type movie, stay away!
There is some good story stuff in this movie, but they are few and far between! The effects are decent and the acting was mostly good throughout the whole cast! And if you watch the movie, please comment your opinion on the movie because I would love to read other people’s opinions from this forum about the movie!
SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE START HERE! :
Like I said, the Come Away’s plot is all over the place!
For example, at first, at the beginning of the movie it’s clear that the fantasy elements are just in children’s imaginations, but then all of a sudden at the end it turns out that the things the children are imagining are real! Wait what??
And the character’s motivations are all over the place too. Like Peter says he wants to grow up, but all of a sudden at the end he doesn’t, and Alice goes back and forth between wanting to be a lady and not wanting to, then there’s the aunt character who the movie isn’t sure if the audience should root for her or not. One minute she’s telling Alice and the parents that Alice needs to act more like a lady, but then twice the movie shows the parents telling the aunt that she doesn’t have children so she can’t understand what it’s like to have children, and that makes the aunt sad and emotional, and we see a scene where she has a good time hanging out with Alice because she feels a mother, but then it goes back to the aunt being portrayed as a villain character again, and it’s just all over the place and really confusing!
Also some subplots in this movie tend to start and then end before reaching a satisfying conclusion. For example, at the beginning Peter wants to be like his older brother David, but this motivation isn’t fleshed out enough because we barely know anything about David and why Peter would want to be like him, and after David dies, he admits to his parents that he wants to replace David and go to the boarding school that David was going to go to, but then something else happens and then the situation is never brought up again. With Alice, she thinks David might still be alive or come back to life, but then the movie suddenly forgets the subplot completely. And actually after David dies, he’s barely mentioned or talked about again in the entire movie!
And then there’s the parents’ story arcs. I’m not really sure what the mother’s is, she mourns David’s death for a bit and sometimes tells off her sister for wanting to make Alice a lady, but that’s pretty much it. The dad’s arc however the movie tries to back a big deal about but it really amounts to nothing and when they focus on him and his gambling problem or his dad and brother, the film comes to a halt and doesn’t really have to do what should be the focus, which is his wife and kids.
If I had made this movie, I would have made it the plot I thought I was getting. David dies, but it focuses more on the kids coping with the death more than the parents, and how they use their imaginations and use their favorite stories, Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, to cope with their grief and also help the parents deal with their grief too.
But finally there’s the most confusing part about the movie, and that’s saying something, the ending! And I think this ending really ruined the movie for me above everything else!
FINAL SPOILER WARNING! DETAILS AND SPOILERS FOR MOVIE’S ENDING START HERE!!! :
Like I said at the beginning, even though it was clearly established at the start of the movie that their Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland fantasies were just their imaginations, end of the movie, it turns out their fantasies are real all of a sudden, and Alice really is the Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Peter is the actual Peter from Peter Pan, so this movie is another prequel movie! Oh boy...
Now I know the posters for the movie hint at this being a prequel story to Alice and Peter Pan, but nothing in the movie before the ending indicates that these kids are the actual Alice and Peter Pan! I almost thought it was a marketing mistake! And because, of course, the backstories don’t add up!
Alice and Peter Pan are siblings! What? And they had an older brother! What? Tinkerbell used to be an actual bell? What? Captain Hook is Peter Pan’s uncle! What? The Mad Hatter’s their grandfather? What? The Queen of Hearts is also their mom, I think? What???
But it gets worse. At the very end, it’s revealed that Alice actually grew up, got married and had three kids, Wendy, John, and Michael. And Peter became Peter Pan and left his family behind for no reason and never gives his family an explanation and never even tells them goodbye, and he goes to Alice’s house years later, still a boy, and whisks her children away to Neverland! WHAT?
And the saddest part is, despite all my ranting, there is a good movie in here, it just needed better writers and a better focus on what the story is and where they wanted to to go. The filmmakers put too many ingredients into one pot, leaving a confusing and gross taste in my mouth.
Also with ALL of that being said I’ve read positive audience reviews of this movie, despite its flaws! I actually rented this movie on YouTube and the comment that I see at the bottom of the movie is “This is my favorite movie ever made me feel like a little boy”. So if you like this movie, I’m not going to say you’re wrong for liking it! If you’re the type of person that just likes a fantasy family movie with magic and decent special effects and simple lessons about believing in magic and other whimsical quotes sprinkled here and there just to turn your brain off for a while, which has been necessary more than ever this year, then I totally understand! But I think most of the people on this forum want more something of substance when it comes to Peter Pan films, and this is not it!
And the movie is only about $5 or $6 to rent depending on where you get it from (on YouTube it was $5), so it’s cheap to watch if you’re really curious about it!
And even though I’ve just given my opinion of the movie, if you still want to watch it, after you do, share your opinion as I would love to read other people’s thoughts about the movie too!
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
Print