Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who produced the 2004 Johnny Depp film Finding Neverland—about the character's creator, J.M. Barrie, and his not-at-all-weird relationship with the Llewelyn Davies family, who inspired the tale—are developing a Broadway musical adaptation.

Screen queen Peggy Siegal, who typically arranges lavish movie premieres for the Weinstein Company and other studios, recently sent out a note to would-be investors inviting them to a special reading of the musical, which features music by Scott Frankel and lyrics by Michael Korie, the team behind Grey Gardens.

Meanwhile, Bob and Harvey are busily ransacking the Miramax back catalog for more material to sprinkle with pixie dust. Also in development are adaptations of Chocolat, Cinema Paradiso and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. We have a director in mind for that one ... she's very experienced with aerial sequences and may have some time on her hands. 

Their Peter and the Starcatcher, a prequel to Peter Pan based on the 2004 children's novel by Dave Barry (yes, that Dave Barry) and Ridley Pearson, is a cleverly mounted, humorously written and exuberantly performed tale of how a now well-known orphan boy met a girl, gained special powers, learned to fly and became a legend. It is being staged without any high-tech gimmickry, with no injured performers and on a budget that presumably wouldn't cover Spider-Man's physical-therapy bills. When this hero takes flight, he's simply lifted by the rest of the cast.

Mr. Elice's script has its problems, but they're nothing compared to those facing the arthropod uptown. Here, it's the first act that's a bit troubled, taking a while to untangle itself and get moving. (Cleverness, like accents, can be tough to decipher until you're acclimated; cleverness plus accents even more so.)

But it quickly develops into something straightforward: Two boats leave a Victorian and Dickensian England bound for the remote, tropical kingdom of Rundoon. One carries a nobleman guarding an important shipment; the other carries three orphans to be sold into slavery there (and also the nobleman's precocious daughter and her beloved, blowsy nanny). There be pirates, a shipwreck, a marauding crocodile and a swallowed kitchen timer, and a magical substance that just might make a boy fly. By the ending, that orphan boy has been dubbed Peter Pan, his friends have become the lost boys and the pirate captain has lost his hand. Over to you, J.M. Barrie.

In broad outline, Peter and the Starcatcher is an obvious descendent of Wicked, that great and powerful cash cow of a Wizard of Oz prequel. But while Wicked is a predictably over-the-top Mackintosh-style production whose best attribute is its unexpectedly rich script--forget the squealing bubblegum tweens for a moment and remember that it's actually a subversive argument against prom queen Glinda--Peter's story is its least interesting attribute, with the resolution of each plot development telegraphed from its first appearance. A charismatic orphan? He'll be Peter. A pirate who hates him? We're waiting for him to lose his hand. A ship named the Neverland? Of course.

But who cares if the story is obvious when the storytelling is this spectacular? Mr. Rees and Mr. Timbers have created a theatrical world that's so high-spirited, so inventive, so smart--Mr. Elice, who is Mr. Rees' partner and who wrote the book for Jersey Boys and cowrote The Addams Family, loads this simple tale with innumerable gags, puns, one-liners and loads of alliteration--that the play's plot is almost irrelevant.

Mr. Timbers (full disclosure: He's a friendly acquaintance) wrote and directed Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and there's a similar knowingly smartass rambunctiousness to this production, full of meta-theatrical commentary and cheerfully mugging actors, all placed within the charmingly ramshackle sets by Donyale Werle. (What appears to be carved woodworking on the Victorian-style proscenium built for the production is on closer inspection plastic forks and what I'm pretty sure are coffee-cup lids glued to the arch.) It all has a cheerful, let's-put-on-a-show affect--no doubt a diligently and artfully manufactured one--that brings the audience in on the fun.

The immensely likable and talented cast contributes to the general air of happy good cheer. Adam Chanler-Berat, broodingly heroic as the stoner boyfriend in Next to Normal, this time wears his brooding heroism more lightly but no less convincingly as the boy who would be Pan. Christian Borle, last seen as Prior Walter in Angels in America, slowly dying of AIDS, is here the live-wire Black Stache, the pirate who'll become Hook. His over-the-top enthusiasm is the perfect engine for this over-the-top production.

Unlike Bloody Bloody (and Wicked and the Broadway version of Peter Pan), Peter and the Starcatcher is not a musical, but it does have some songs, written by Marco Paguia. There's also some dancing, some fighting, some drag and a bit of Black Watch-style theatrical acrobatics.

There's a lot going on, but still, Peter and the Starcatcher is at its heart a little show, in a little space. It knows what it is, and it's doing all those little things in the best ways. It's goofy, it's immature--it won't grow up!--and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

editorial@observer.com

AIMEE: "What kind of peanut butter is Brian's favorite?" one of the moms at my Philly bridal shower calls out to me. We’re playing the "How-well-do-you and-Brian-know-each-other-game” and the afternoon has reached its breathlessly cheery peak. I'm feeling one part kid-on-Christmas-morning and one part Desperate-Housewife-at-a-press conference, but in a totally fun way.

"Skippy!" I blurt out instinctively. "Wait, no,” I almost fall for the trick question, "up until a couple weeks ago, it was always Peter Pan!"

"Exactly right!" she cheers, then reads her slip: "'Used to be Peter Pan…now Skippy!'"

Lauren, my sister-in-law to be, places in my lap a placesetting of my china along with a card. "Oooh, thank you! I love my china!" Holding up a saucer proudly, I address the whole group: "You'll notice my china pattern bears a striking resemblance to the invitations that will be arriving in your mailboxes this week, ladies. And that's no coincidence!" Everyone whoops it up, I know my audience. It’s a group that really appreciates pattern coordination. I bask in their praise.

"Here! Aimee!" another waving hand. "What is Brian allergic to that he still continues to eat?"

"Green apples AND red apples! It's ridiculous!” More laughter. "His eyes get red and puffy and yet he continues to buy them and eat them! See what I'm working with? And I have a lifetime of this!" Laughter ensues. "I'm here all week folks!" Yes, I actually say those words and as I do, realize I have, in fact, had a couple glasses too many of that tasty blush wine (but it was so pretty!) Is it hot in here? No, in fact others are shivering. An All-Clad non-stick frying pan appears on my lap with a card. I read and wave to the relatives, all in from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: "Thank you Harrisburg!!” I call out to the back of the restaurant. "Love it!"

"Aimee!" says another voice. "What does Brian say is your greatest extravagance?"

"Sending my laundry out to be washed! I'm so embarrassed! I used to do mine--and his, I'll have you know," more whooping, from all the moms who understand matters of laundry--"But now Brian has converted me to the dark side. Please don't judge me!" Laughter.

"Are you ready for your hat?” Brian's childhood friend Jen says from somewhere behind my chair. Time for embarrassing pictures!" Quite the milliner, she ties on a lovely number she's fashioned out of the top of a Bloomies box and a slew of bows and ribbons from all my shower gifts. I pose for the popping flashbulbs.

The release date of Mr. Forster's Finding Neverland was reportedly delayed because it was deemed too soon after P.J. Hogan's 2003 live-action Peter Pan, made 50 years after Disney's popular 1953 cartoon rendition of the play (and almost 80 years after Betty Bronson scored a fondly remembered triumph as a winsome Peter Pan in Herbert Brenon's 1924 silent film version, a mere 20 years after the play's 1904 premiere on the London stage). In the interim, we've had Mary Martin and many other boyish females flying about in theatrical venues across the world.

I must confess that, as far back as I can remember, I thought the very idea of Peter Pan a bit creepy-and this was long before Michael Jackson came along to poison the well of retrogressive whimsy. Up until now, I've deliberately remained so ignorant of the entire subject that I'm still not sure whether Peter Pan asks the audience to clap if they believe in fairies to save Tinkerbell or Wendy Darling.

Still, I was somewhat impressed when Alfred Hitchcock told me that one of the high points of dramatic art in the Western world was the moment when Peter Pan asked the audience to clap. It seems that Hitch had always wanted to film Barrie's Mary Rose, with its ghostly theme, but the studios would never back him. I can only speculate that Vertigo (1958) was the next closest thing to expressing and exorcising his deepest feelings about mortality and denial.

On its own terms, Finding Neverland succeeds as a self-contained emotional experience because of its departures from biographical accuracy, and in spite of them. The documented facts would have been much messier to adapt to the screen. For example, the five real-life Llewelyn Davies boys would've been more unwieldy to shoot than the four depicted in the film. Likewise, including the boy's father, Arthur Llewelyn Davies, would have been an obstacle in portraying Barrie's casual access to the boys for playtime frolics in the park-research material for the play that would later make him a national treasure. Hence, in the film, the boys' father is recently deceased, so that they-in particular Peter, the youngest-would still be grieving for him when Barrie appears on the scene as a strange sort of surrogate father and playmate (a role that the real-life Barrie legally assumed after their mother died).

Yet in the film, the mother also dies-much earlier than she did in real life-with Barrie as a climactic consoler. As the audience brushes away their tears, one may feel manipulated (or not), but Mr. Depp's unyielding restraint in this and all other potentially sticky situations places him in a virtual three-way tie in my winter Oscar picks, along with Jamie Foxx ( Ray) and Paul Giamatti ( Sideways). Mr. Depp's portrayal of Barrie is marvelously discreet, just subtle enough to let the well-placed fantasy sequences run rampant without undermining the central narrative. Mr. Depp's Barrie evolves within a behavioral vacuum that encourages and inspires all the uninhibited tumult of childhood to fill it.

The film begins with the somewhat mystifying mise-en-scène of opening night at the theater, with hubbub on both sides of the curtain. We witness what is eventually a momentary setback in Barrie's playwriting career, setting the stage, as it were, for his luminous success with Peter Pan. We're introduced to Barrie as a shy, insecure but still decisive figure who aims to please both theater patrons and critics, and who becomes quietly distraught when his play is rebuffed by both. We're introduced to his prophetically exasperated wife, Mary Ansell Barrie (Radha Mitchell), and to his comically stoic producer, Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman), who views the looming financial disaster of the evening with a calming sang-froid. The delicacy of these sequences provides early assurances of a light touch in Mr. Forster's directorial approach.

The separate bedrooms in the Barrie household evoke not only a loveless marriage, but also an upper-class existence with the full complement of servants. Not that Barrie's subsequent forays in the park with the Llewelyn Davies brood mark him as a predator of the less advantaged. Indeed, when Barrie is introduced to the beautiful mother of the boys, Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), and their beautiful but formidably disapproving grandmother, Mrs. Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie), the widow of the celebrated illustrator and novelist George du Maurier, it's Barrie's social-climbing wife who insists that he invite the whole family to dinner. The French-born du Maurier, the creator of such eccentric creatures as Trilby and Svengali in his second novel, Trilby (perhaps best known these days as the inspiration for Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera), is not the only cultural name dropped in the course of the film. Ian Hart plays a friendly gossip who warns Barrie about his "unseemly" association with four boys and their comely widowed mother, a woman not his wife. Not until the closing credits do we discover him to be Arthur Conan Doyle.

So the dinner is held, and ruined in Mary Barrie's eyes when her husband persists in playing the clown for the boys' amusement. Mr. Depp thus expresses through Barrie a quiet fanaticism at work, a stubborn belief in the spiritual supremacy of childhood in human existence. Barrie's own spiritual desolation is traced back to the death of his older brother, a loss that left his mother too inconsolable to pay attention to her younger son. In desperation, Barrie dressed up in his brother's clothes, and was rewarded with the first intent glances of his mother toward him.

One might say that the wounded boy, James Barrie, never really grew up-and thus, in literary terms, the deep appeal for him of boys who refused to grow up. Yet this would constitute a grotesque oversimplification. It is not simply growing up that's at issue here, but rather facing the fearsome issues of life and death at an early age. Barrie lived at a time when childhood deaths were more common than they are today. The crocodile with the clock ticking in his belly chews us all, as one of Barrie's elderly theatergoing admirers tells the pensive author. Barrie responds with a wondrously startled expression at the old lady's good-natured perspicacity, even after that same crocodile has swallowed her own husband.

The integration of childhood and adulthood has never been more felicitously achieved than it has here, with the perfect casting of Mr. Depp, Ms. Winslet, Ms. Christie, Ms. Mitchell and Mr. Hoffman on the grown-up side, in tandem with the Llewelyn Davies brothers: Jack (Joe Prospero), George (Nick Roud), Michael (Luke Spill) and the heartbreaking youngest, Peter (Freddie Highmore). It's sobering to note that in real life, two of the Davies boys died as young adults, and that Peter himself-who never came to terms with the unwanted celebrity he received as the model for Peter Pan-threw himself under a train at the age of 63. Perhaps to cheat the crocodile of time?

Still, I'm sure that if Hitchcock were alive today, he'd lead the clapping when asked if he believed in fairies by that convincingly eloquent Scottish actress, Kelly MacDonald, as the most evocative Peter Pan for the ages. As a work of art, Finding Neverland establishes its limits and then transcends them to provide a glorious entertainment for this holiday season.

Bravo, Bening

István Szabó's Being Julia, from a screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham, continues the lend-lease policy of American and British actors exchanging nationalities. Hence Jude Law in the Old South of Cold Mountain and Liam Neeson in the Kinsey Institute of Indiana in one direction, and Renée Zellweger's Bridget Jones and Annette Bening as British stage actress Julia Lambert in the other.

Ms. Bening has been away for so long that one is inclined to plug Being Julia hard, if only to keep her working in movies more often. The image of Ms. Bening materializing from Michael Douglas' bathroom in The American President (1995) in seemingly nothing but a man's shirt and a blazingly affirmative smile is one of the most erotic moments in the history of the American cinema, but that was almost a decade ago.

The movie here is reasonably faithful to the original Maugham story, which I read about a million years ago, and the supporting cast is mostly first-rate, particularly Jeremy Irons as Julia's producer/husband, Michael Gosselyn; Bruce Greenwood as Lord Charles, her loyal gay admirer; Juliet Stevenson as Evie, her faithful dresser; and Michael Gambon as her late, ghostly first drama teacher, Jimmy Langton.

Where the casting slips up considerably is with her young lover, Tom Fennel, played by an excessively callow and transparently insincere Shaun Evans, and her younger rival both onstage and in the bedroom, Avice Crichton, played by Lucy Punch as a grotesque caricature of a temptress. Indeed, as I watched Ms. Punch smirking with self-adoration at every opportunity, I leaned over to my companion at the screening and whispered, "This girl makes me appreciative of Anne Baxter in All About Eve." As Eve Harrington, Baxter was all that Bette Davis' Margo Channing could handle-and then some. The same goes for Cameron Diaz and Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding, a more or less even match. But here, Julia has it much too easy getting her own back against a completely charmless rival. But as I listened to the joyously womanly laughter in the Paris Theatre, I realized that most female viewers of a certain age so completely identified with the seemingly fading Julia that they didn't want anything remotely resembling a close contest between her and that talentless bitch. I don't blame Ms. Punch entirely: She was obviously told not to do anything subtle or interesting vis-à-vis Ms. Bening.

My second objection to the film has to do with the idiocy of the lines presumably spoken on a London stage in 1938. Much of Ms. Bening's supposed upstaging of Ms. Punch on opening night has to do with the way the two actresses play a scene as one of the characters keeps sneezing when trying to say something important. The theater audience of 1938 is supposed to find this simply hilarious; I didn't, although I enjoyed watching Ms. Bening in close to top form, and I think you will, too.

Do You Remember Me?

Charles Shyer's Alfie, from the screenplay by Elaine Pope and Ms. Shyer, based on the stage play (and later screenplay) by Bill Naughton, has been unflatteringly compared to the original Alfie (1966), with Michael Caine in the womanizing role taken on in the remake by Jude Law. As far as I'm concerned, denouncing remakes for not living up to the original is like shooting fish in a barrel: So what else is new? If a remake slavishly follows the original, it lacks imagination; if it takes great liberties, what was the point in doing it in the first place?

The two versions of Alfie are very different. One takes place in swinging-60's London, the other in post-millennial Manhattan. Mr. Caine is a Cockney playboy, and his accent carries with it a certain class pathos; Mr. Law is a footloose Brit on the prowl in post– Sex and the City Manhattan, where the local chicks reportedly drool over men with British accents. It seemed to me, as a Manhattanite, that the film's midtown streets were overloaded with sexually ferocious babes-hardly members of the working and walking population I encounter in my daily travels. Yet there seemed to be more targets for the first Alfie than for the second. In London, Mr. Caine's Alfie could choose from among Shelley Winters, Millicent Martin, Julia Forster, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant and Eleanor Bron. In Manhattan, Mr. Law's Alfie has his pick of Susan Sarandon, Jane Krakowski, Marisa Tomei, Sienna Miller, Nia Long and a comically landladyish Renee Taylor. Otherwise, the original Alfie was as much overrated as the remake is underrated. Split the difference.

How could you have possibly known that, by the time she was 10, Mommy's little angel would be strutting around like a pole dancer from Bada Bing!?

Yes! Instead of jumping rope to "Mabel, Mabel, set the table, just as fast as you are able," your precious daughter is now practicing her lap-dance butt jiggle, in perfect mimicry of her idol, Christina Aguilera.

Ms. Aguilera's performance in the scandalous new David LaChapelle–directed video for her song "Dirrty" ( sic )-from Stripped , her new CD, to be released on Oct. 29-is a world-class example of contemporary, slutty hoochie-dancing, made all the more shocking when you remember that her audience is primarily made up of 9-12 year-olds, which savvy marketers are now calling "tweens."

During the course of this sweaty, orgiastic visual onslaught, Miss Aguilera-who suggestively wears kneepads throughout-acts as if she's having some kind of frenzied, erotic apoplexy. RCA press materials laud her efforts to reach out "for something more real," but her video gives the impression that all she really wants to do is wiggle and diddle and jiggle until she out-hoochies the currently reclusive Britney Spears.

I have no idea what kind of impact these feverishly eroticized displays are having on Ms. Aguilera's young fan base. One thing I can say for sure: She really has screwed things up for the stripper community. By teaching all these nasty-girl moves to her tweeny fans, Ms. Aguilera has thrown a major butt-plug at the hard-working girls whose livelihood hinges on the erotic resonance of their body language. These "industry" professionals have had-via Ms. Aguilera and her ilk-their entire choreographic repertoire hijacked by little girls.

Now that all their routines have been appropriated by these pre-Lolitas, the pressure is on for the strippers of America to come up with a whole new vocabulary of kinky choreography. All bets are off on where they might seek inspiration: Martha Graham à go-go? Erotic Riverdancing?

Re sex and fashion: Grab your kneepads, girls, because sleaze is the big message for spring. By February-if the blinkered, terminally groovy designers in Europe have their way-you ladies will all be sporting Taliban-defying, crotch-length dresses. My advice: Load up on clothes from this season and just skip spring. Don't worry about shvitzing : This season's garments are constructed from the lightweight wools and mohairs which we in the industry call "transitional" fabrics, and all of them are great ! Yes, fall 2002 will go down in history as an unforgettable season for real clothes. Why? The merch that's currently hanging in the stores was all conceived in the shadow of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. With their feet, for once, plonked squarely on the ground, all the designers spewed out glorious classic drag-much of which is fiercely sexy in its own quiet way, especially the skirts. Prada's twill gabardine pencil-skirt ($650 at Prada) and Balenciaga's black wool mini with flounce hem ($575 at Barneys) are the best. Wear under Behnaz Sarafpour's subtly kinky, ivory muslin, belted, double-breasted trench ($1,265). Also titillatingly restrained is Alexander McQueen's black wool gabardine side-button pant ($755 at the new McQueen store in the meat-packing district, next to Jeffrey at 417 West 14th).

For more information about spring 2003 looks, check out the meat-market hos after shopping at Alexander McQueen.

P.S.: If you have any suggestions about where New York's strippers might seek inspiration as they struggle to create a new choreographic vocabulary, please e-mail them to me at sdoonan@observer.com. I will be only too happy to forward them to the individuals concerned.