Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

samkan Had the plot to NEVERWAS not been so contrived and stuffed with melodramatic subplots and themes, this film might have worked. Ever-so-slowly discovering that an author of a famous children's fantasy stole the creation from a mental patient and allowing the late thief's son to unwittingly become the detective is story enough. That there was an actual place underlying the mental patient's fantasy, that events gives son some closure and subtle messages like "we all create our own kingdoms", etc., can be interesting and accepted with cleverness and deft touch.Instead NEVERWAS pounds themes, circumstances and profundity into our brains until we become weary. Why not have made son a wash-out who came to work at the institution out of desperation? Instead of making the heroine a clandestine reporter, why not just a local lass whose obsession with the famous kid tale parallel's the mental patient; i.e., how we all live in fantasy worlds, though to different degrees. Why not just toss mom's character along with the characterization given to the other mental patients or to the institute's chief?The all star cast is simply inexplicable and, with the exception of McKellum, unnecessary. In the end, NEVERWAS is enjoyable, though its dinner at a four-star restaurant when all you needed was a slice of pizza.

silvercrystaletears Just finished watching this and have to say that while we usually find IMDb to be spot on in regards to movie details, this one has a mistake on it. The character played by Brittany Murphy is not named Ally, but Maggie. At least thats the way it is in the Australian movie.About the movie itself - I personally found it a bit slow and hard to stay involved in it. I was able to get up and leave the room several times and upon returning found that not only did I not need to go back to see what I missed, but that I was totally indifferent to what I missed.It definitely didn't hold the kids interest either.

gradyharp NEVERWAS, a little miracle of a movie written and directed by Joshua Michael Stern, is an allegory, a fairytale, a dissection of the impact of mental illness on parents and children, and story of compassion, believing, and blossoming of character that was created with a sterling ensemble of actors in 2005, failed to find a niche in theatrical distribution, and went straight to DVD - becoming one of those limited release films that is very elusive even in the megavideo stores. The reasons for this relative anonymity are not clear, but film lovers will do well searching out this little gem: the rewards are immediate gratification and long lasting satisfaction.Narrated by Ian McKellan who plays a major role in the film, the story concerns the return of psychiatrist Zachary Riley/Small (Aaron Eckhart) to an obsolete mental institution named Millhouse, the hospital where his author father T.L. Pierson (Nick Nolte) ended his days in suicide, having suffered from bipolar syndrome. Zach wants to discover secrets about his father, why his father's book 'Neverwas' has been so disturbing to Zach, and to offer good medical treatment to those patients living in the obscure hospital run by the kindly but enigmatic Dr. Reed (William Hurt). Zach is buoyant, greets his new job with joy, and works with various patients in group and individual therapy (the group includes well developed characters portrayed by Alan Cumming, Vera Farmiga, and Michael Moriarty, among others) and encounters the apparently mute Gabriel Finch (Ian McKellan), a delusional man who believes Zach has returned to break the curse preventing his return to his imaginary kingdom of Neverwas.Zach meets a 'grad student botantist'/reporter Ally (Brittany Murphy) who loves Zach's father's book and urges Zach to read the fairytale as a means to assuage Zach's new nightly nightmares and insomnia dealing with images of himself as a child, his father's suicide, and other strange forces. Ally's commitment to Zach's father's book, Zach's breakthrough to Gabriel Finch, together with Zach's re-evaluation of his agoraphobic mother (Jessica Lange) all intertwine to reestablish Zach's discovery of his relationship to a father whose mental illness prevented the close relationship Zach so desperately missed. In a tumbling set of events that incorporate the fairytale of the book Neverwas with the reality of Zach's father's relationship to Gabriel Finch brings the story to a heartwarming, well considered, touching conclusion. Being 'unordinary' is a goal, not a curse.In addition to the above-mentioned stellar cast, small parts are also created by Bill Bellamy, Ken Roberts, Cynthia Stevenson among others. The cinematography by Michael Grady manages to keep the audience balanced between real and fantasy and the musical score by renowned composer Philip Glass fits the story like a glove. Ian McKellan gives a multifaceted performance of a man whose delusional life is far more real than his life as a mental patient, Aaron Eckhart finesses the transformation of the lost child seeking his roots with great skill, Nick Nolte gives one of his finer interpretations as the disturbed father/author, and Brittany Murphy manages to maintain a much needed lightness to the atmosphere of the mental institution story setting. The impact of the film, while absorbing from the first images, is the ending, a reinforcement of the importance of love and nurturing that too often is relegated to little books for children instead of the manner in which we live our lives. This is a fine film well worth ferreting out from the obscurity to which it so unjustly has been assigned. Grady Harp

Rooster9 I've seen a few movies about "magical reality" -- that fantasy zone where fairy tales and the real world cross, forcing jaded adults and child-like idealists to war over the relevance of imagination in a world full of disappointment. Most recently, "Big Fish," "Finding Neverland" and "Gods and Monsters" spring to mind. Then there's "Neverwas," a film so full of unnecessary flash and "magical reality" clichés that it shames the stories from which it pilfered its name... namely J.M. Barie's tales of Neverland and Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere." And while "Neverwas" never will be remembered as fondly as those tales, it does manage to skim off the top of their inspiration and come up with a flimsy, smug movie that mimics much better movies."Neverwas" gives us the jaded adult, the insightful madman, the understanding girlfriend, flashes of light, rain storms of glitter and... nothing else. It's a hollow movie that has seen other, better movies and is trying, in vain, to ape them. And it's written by a writer who's read lots of fairy tales but can't seem to create a convincing one himself. It's a wonder that so many good actors were coaxed into this production. I can think of at least six good fantasy films starring Ian McKellen. And "Neverwas" is definitely not one of them. "Neverwas" is a flashy shell of a movie... like a karaoke singer who knows the words but not the music.