Hook
Watching “Hook” for the first time in 20 years, it occurred to me very early on what the fundamental flaw in the film is, and it lies in its premise: the idea that Peter Pan grows up. So many of Steven Spielberg’s greatest films in the early part of his career had a basic idea, that of an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances. By his very nature, Peter Pan is extraordinary: a boy who would never grow up. If he did grow up, however, he would still be the same person deep down, only forgotten. By focusing on a grown-up Peter Pan, Spielberg, like his protagonist, was going against his own nature, and what makes many of his best films so extraordinary. Would we still watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” if Richard Dreyfuss was a scientist, whose life was all about the unknown? Or “E.T.” if Elliot were in a happy home, and never really searching for something that would make him whole?
In “Hook,” Robin Williams stars as Peter Banning, a corporate lawyer with no time for his family, even when he’s at his daughter’s school play. That play is “Peter Pan,” and Peter’s daughter is playing Wendy. And yet, Peter is on the phone, planning an early morning meeting during his son’s baseball game the next day. Of course, he misses that one as well. And don’t even get me started on Peter’s behavior when the family makes a holiday trip to London to see Granny Wendy (Maggie Smith, in a wonderful performance that deserves a better movie), who is being honored for her work with orphans. Way back when, Wendy once took in Peter, and he is helping celebrate her work. One night, however, he comes home to find his children stolen by one “J.A.S. Hook, Captain.” That’s when Wendy lays some truth on Peter: he was the boy who would never grow up J.M. Barrie wrote about, and Granny Wendy is the same Wendy in that classic story; it was her experience in Neverland all those years ago that inspired her to work with orphans. Now, Peter must remember who he was in order to save his children from the clutches of a revenge-driven Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman, hamming it up big time, and loving every minute).
Almost immediately after the film began, I found myself thinking how the film, and the script by Jim V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo (from a story by Hart and Nick Castle, who was to direct before Spielberg), would have worked had Banning had really been an orphan that Granny Wendy had taken in rather than the grown up Pan himself, and you know what? Immediately, the film would have worked better, all the while maintaining the same thematic core. Granted, the logistics of getting Banning involved with the Lost Boys and Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts, ideally cast) would have been tricky, but that’s where a little imagination goes a long way.
And even in its flawed form, “Hook,” which by the end still had my heart, has a lot of imagination to go around, from the typically great score by John Williams to the wonderful art direction in Neverland, which is sometimes too bombastic, but definitely worthy of the Oscar nominations it received. Visually, Spielberg is inspired by the idea of creating Neverland, and given the limitations in visual effects at the time, he does a marvelous job, although looking at the film now, one wonders how Spielberg would have seen the film now. I bet it would have been magical (and hopefully, less influenced by contemporary culture; there’s way too many modern touches in the world of Neverland).
But for Spielberg, it was time to grow up as well. Just as his Pan changed when he met who would become his wife, Moira (Wendy’s granddaughter, played by Caroline Goodall), Spielberg was ready to become more than just a young wunderkind known for popular escapism. And it didn’t take him long: though his next film after “Hook” is one of his most popular movies (“Jurassic Park”), he followed that with his most devastating, the Oscar winning “Schindler’s List.” That one opened to floodgates for the director, as his filmmaking style (and subjects) became more mature, even when he returned to more escapist works such as “War of the Worlds,” “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” (which has a decidedly darker tone than the original) and “Minority Report.” And when he returned to one his most beloved characters with 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the end result was fun, but needless to say, not up to the standards he set with those earlier adventures. Like Pan, it looked like Spielberg grew up for good. Thankfully, word is his next film– the animated epic, “The Adventures of Tintin” –returns to that place of wonder and imagination. Does that mean a new chapter in Spielberg’s career, where his renewed sense of fun can be expressed alongside his more adult concerns? Well, a few days after “Tintin” comes “War Horse,” about a horse trying to survive during WWI, so we’ll see, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
**Author’s Postscript:** I realize that, in the end, I didn’t really go into much depth about the film. Part of that is because, there’s just not a whole lot I felt like I had to say about it immediately after. The film is one of Spielberg’s lesser works, but there are moments of that old Spielberg magic, nonetheless. The best example is in Neverland, when Peter (whom Williams plays perfectly once the proceedings move to Neverland; he’s less successful at the beginning) is relaying the story of why he ended up leaving to Tink. It’s a beautifully made sequence by Spielberg, and wonderfully scored by Williams, and helped me see that maybe the idea of Peter Pan growing up wasn’t quite the miscalculation I made it out to be. In the beginning of the film, it certainly feels that way, and admittedly, I still feel like an ordinary, selfish father who learns to rekindle that child-like side of him to be a better father to his kids would have been a better main character, but Spielberg wasn’t completely off-base with this conception. It just doesn’t work as well as you’d like in the execution.
