Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Come Away’ on VOD, a Fantasy Jumble of ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’

In this week’s episode of Further Journeys into the Public Domain, Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland get rejiggered for Come Away, an is-it-real-or-is-it-fantasy period piece now on Hulu after debuting on VOD about a year ago. Brave and The Prince of Egypt director Brenda Chapman makes the jump from animation to live action with this tale of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, and now we’ll see if it can forge a fresh story from well-trod material.

COME AWAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Alice (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) experienced a fateful summer when she was eight, and since it involved a tumble down the rabbit hole, she turns it into a bedtime story for her children. The memories are halcyon, possibly the halcyonest: Young Alice (Keira Chansa) gallavanted and gamboled through the forest with her brothers Peter (Jordan A Nash) and David (Reece Yates), pretending to be warriors and adventurers and whatnot. Sticks are transformed to swords via the magic of CGI; the stuffed rabbit is a hostage threatened with scalping. It was such an innocent time.

Their father Jack (David Oyelowo) crafts model boats commissioned by rich people. Mother Rose (Angelina Jolie) is a placid sort, and her sister Eleanor (Anna Chancellor) is absolutely not that, instead being a good old-fashioned classist bigot who thinks Black people are lesser and women should be molded into servile mannequins via finishing school. Because of this, I have no problem saying she’s barren as hell and deserves her poignantly arid loneliness. Rose gifts little Alice with a tiny handbell and the story behind it; it’s actually a fairy named Tinker, because fairies manifest as bells through human eyes. Peter struggles with school, but has a lucrative imagination and interest in his dad’s craft. David is about to go away to a prestigious boarding school, and his father commemorates the moment by giving him a personalized pocket watch.

But tragedy strikes, and while I won’t say what, you may have already deduced that characters in this movie that aren’t named after popular figures from familiar stories and/or movies are doomed for not fitting neatly into allegories. Dooooooooomed. Wracked with grief, Rose drinks and Jack gambles, Peter assembles the “Lawst Boise” of the Wild and Alice faces the Red Queen, and all sorts of references and metaphors come to a dramatic head.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Oscar-baity Finding Neverland and the prequel nobody asked for, 2016 Hugh Jackman scenery buffet Pan, draw on similar period-piece/reimagination vibes, with some of the less garish elements of Disney’s recent Johnny Depped Alice in Wonderland movies tossed in for good measure.

Performance Worth Watching: Kid actors Chansa and Nash give reasonably winning performances, often transcending the script’s serial stiffness.

Memorable Dialogue: One of the Lawst Boise sums up the movie’s themes for us in case we’re too dense to figure it out ourselves: “Most children lose their Neverlands. They get all growed up.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Come Away has it all — whimsy, wonder, melodrama, lush set design and costumes, star power, strong child actors — but never really brings it all together cohesively. Chapman and screenwriter Marissa Kate Goodhill began with a decent core idea that suffers in execution. It plods along, sluggish of pace, until a frenzied final-act push — not that young viewers are likely make it that far, because you can sense them dropping out after about 20 minutes, as the adults in the room grope for a sturdy dramatic handhold.

The end result is a thematically muddled collection of references and a blending of fantasy and reality that’s more mechanical than magical. This isn’t to say the film is emotionally empty or ineffective; as their characters experience a string of trying domestic setbacks, Oyelowo and Jolie do what they can to battle a stifling tone. (Michael Caine and Clarke Peters show up a couple times each in forgettable nothing roles.) The conclusion is exciting but almost incomprehensible, summing up something something dreams something childhood wonder etc., and hey, older people, don’t forget to BELIEVE in shit. You’ll want Come Away to work a lot better than it does.

Our Call: SKIP IT. What Come Away cornball cliche do you want here? It never takes flight like Peter Pan? Or it doesn’t go deep enough into the Wonderland rabbit hole?

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch Come Away on Hulu