As the story unfolds we wondered if it was a modern day fairy tale. Found it on Netflix streaming movies. Quite a good drama and Brittany Murphy, who met with her untimely death just a few years later, really shines.
In the opening scene we see a flashback of a boy hearing sirens and as he runs down a wooded trail stops when he encounters a man's body, hanging from a tree. We don't see the whole body but as the movie unfolds we conclude it was the boy's father, an author of a famous children's book.
Maybe 25 years later this boy is the adult, Aaron Eckhart as Zach Riley, a psychiatrist. He has a stellar background and a good practice but applies for a job at an out-of-the-way sanitarium. He keeps his motives hidden, but he never came to grips with his father's death and hopes to find some answers there, as his father was a patient there before he wrote his book.
Other key cast members are Nick Nolte as the deceased father, T.L. Pierson. Ian McKellen (who steals the show most of the time) as inmate Gabriel Finch. Brittany Murphy as Maggie Paige, a younger childhood friend of Zach's and who says she is there to do research for her Botany thesis. Jessica Lange as Zack's mom, Katherine Pierson. And always understated and good William Hurt as Dr. Peter Reed, director of the sanitarium.
The title comes from the book the father wrote, a book about a modern kingdom, "Neverwas", right over the mountains that can be seen from the sanitarium. The hero in that children's book is Zachary who goes to free the king who is held in the dungeon. In an old interview Zach is viewing, his dad at one point says to the reporter, "Sometimes the story finds the story teller, not the other way around." And that is what this movie is all about.
SPOILERS: Upon digging Zach finds out that his dad in the early 1960s was in the sanitarium along with old Gabriel Finch who is still there. Gabriel claims he is the King of Neverwas, trapped in the dungeon (the sanitarium) and he knows Zach has come back to free him. Gabriel's story is pretty much identical to dad's book 'Neverwas' which was written in the late 1960s and was basically telling the old man's story. It turns out Maggie is not a Botanist but a reporter there to do a story, but in the end she lets it rest, she and Zach begin a romance. Gabriel does manage to escape to his "kingdom" which is a shelter he built on public lands, he faces eviction, but a court order just in time saves him. For now...
In the opening scene we see a flashback of a boy hearing sirens and as he runs down a wooded trail stops when he encounters a man's body, hanging from a tree. We don't see the whole body but as the movie unfolds we conclude it was the boy's father, an author of a famous children's book.
Maybe 25 years later this boy is the adult, Aaron Eckhart as Zach Riley, a psychiatrist. He has a stellar background and a good practice but applies for a job at an out-of-the-way sanitarium. He keeps his motives hidden, but he never came to grips with his father's death and hopes to find some answers there, as his father was a patient there before he wrote his book.
Other key cast members are Nick Nolte as the deceased father, T.L. Pierson. Ian McKellen (who steals the show most of the time) as inmate Gabriel Finch. Brittany Murphy as Maggie Paige, a younger childhood friend of Zach's and who says she is there to do research for her Botany thesis. Jessica Lange as Zack's mom, Katherine Pierson. And always understated and good William Hurt as Dr. Peter Reed, director of the sanitarium.
The title comes from the book the father wrote, a book about a modern kingdom, "Neverwas", right over the mountains that can be seen from the sanitarium. The hero in that children's book is Zachary who goes to free the king who is held in the dungeon. In an old interview Zach is viewing, his dad at one point says to the reporter, "Sometimes the story finds the story teller, not the other way around." And that is what this movie is all about.
SPOILERS: Upon digging Zach finds out that his dad in the early 1960s was in the sanitarium along with old Gabriel Finch who is still there. Gabriel claims he is the King of Neverwas, trapped in the dungeon (the sanitarium) and he knows Zach has come back to free him. Gabriel's story is pretty much identical to dad's book 'Neverwas' which was written in the late 1960s and was basically telling the old man's story. It turns out Maggie is not a Botanist but a reporter there to do a story, but in the end she lets it rest, she and Zach begin a romance. Gabriel does manage to escape to his "kingdom" which is a shelter he built on public lands, he faces eviction, but a court order just in time saves him. For now...