Ooh, his tie is undone and she's looking a bit flushed. In those days, that would practically make them engaged.

An imaginative movie about imagination, Finding Neverland tells the story of J.M. Barrie, who befriended a fatherless family and used the inspiration they provided to create Peter Pan.

As the movie opens, Barrie is suffering through the opening night of his latest play. All of fashionable London society has turned out, but the play’s a flop and everyone knows it. Dejected, Barrie finds little comfort with his brittle, social-climbing wife Mary, but in the park the next day he encounters the Llewelyn Davies family. In widowed Sylvia (Kate Winslet) and her four sons he finds an appreciative audience for his flights of fancy. At first Mary (Radha Mitchell) is happy about the friendship, since Sylvia is from a prominent family. But it soon becomes obvious that Barrie is more interested in entertaining the boys during a formal dinner party than in making social contacts, and both Mary and Sylvia’s imposing mother (Julie Christie) strongly disapprove.

"Come on, let me play Hook. Please? I think I'll be a lot less campy without Robin Williams around."

Finding Neverland is the kind of movie for which it’s tempting to pull out all the appropriate but too easy adjectives, like sweet, charming and delightful. It is all those things, of course, dealing not only with the themes of creativity and inspiration but of human connection and family. Director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) has created a lyrical, heart-felt film, peppered with fantasy sequences that illustrate the world of imagination in which Barrie prefers to dwell. Barrie is depicted as a man with the sweet nature of a child, and using simple, even primitive, effects, Forster draws us into his thoughts. His choices in these sequences are always spot-on, like when Barrie is playing pirate with the boys. Forster cuts between the real world of the English countryside and the world of imagination, where Barrie is the pirate captain terrorizing his crew aboard a ship tossing on a stylized, plywood sea. It’s a lovely, elegant touch, and oddly endearing in this age of hyper-realistic CGI effects. Simpler moments are just as beautiful, as when, after a strained good-night, Barrie and his wife retreat into their separate bedrooms. Mary’s is cold and dark and real, while Barrie’s is a glorious, sunlit field.

Early screen tests for Pirates of the Caribbean.

I know which door I’d rather go through, and it’s not just because Johnny Depp is behind one of them. (Though, let’s face it, that doesn’t hurt.) Depp disappears into the role of Barrie with an earnest, tender performance that could (should) earn him his second Oscar nomination. He deftly portrays Barrie as more gentle man than gentleman, with a sparkling imagination forever in danger of being stifled by the constraints of polite society. Then there’s Kate Winslet, positively glowing in full-on Earth-mother mode as Sylvia; Julie Christie, whose daunting iciness makes her inevitable thaw all the more affecting; and Dustin Hoffman, gliding through his role as Barrie’s world-weary producer. But watch out for Freddie Highmore as Peter, the most serious of the Llewelyn Davies boys. Honestly, if this kid doesn’t touch your heart you may want to check to see if you really have one. (Depp liked him so much that he got Tim Burton to him as Charlie in the upcoming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.)

If the idea of a grown man befriending a passel of boys sends your mind to a sordid, Michael Jackson-esque place, well, don’t worry about it. This movie doesn’t have a moment that’s cynical or prurient. If Barrie’s relationship with Sylvia won’t likely make romantics swoon, neither will his scenes with the boys make you squirm.

Finding Neverland is sort of an odd sell as a movie. Rated PG, there’s nothing here that would make it inappropriate for kids, but I’m not sure it would hold their attention either. At the same time, perhaps it’s too soft for adult audiences. If so, what a shame. Sincerity and joy unpolluted by calculation and smarminess are all too rare at the movies today. We need to embrace it when it comes along.

Gorilla Pants rating: 4 out of 4 bananas