By Heather Stromski
There aren't many movies that I can watch from my childhood that I love as much now as I did then. Near the top of that short list is 1991’s Hook, a live-action take on the beloved children's tale Peter Pan that contains as much fun for adults as it does for children, with all manner of inside jokes – and inner sadness - that become all too clear as one 'grows up'.
There aren't many movies that I can watch from my childhood that I love as much now as I did then. Near the top of that short list is 1991’s Hook, a live-action take on the beloved children's tale Peter Pan that contains as much fun for adults as it does for children, with all manner of inside jokes – and inner sadness - that become all too clear as one 'grows up'.
We’ll get the stellar top-billed cast out of the way: Robin Williams was the perfect choice to play Peter Banning/Peter Pan. He doesn’t fail to make his funny parts funny, and the more serious parts beautifully poignant, instead of painfully awkward. Dustin Hoffman was…well, let’s put it plainly: he was Captain James Hook. He made the role. His titular villain was such a charming, interesting rogue that you couldn’t help almost rooting for him at times. Julia Roberts as the miniscule Tinkerbell was especially inspired – though that could simply be my intense love for Ms. Roberts, which was born with this movie – and she made the smart-aleck fairy’s intense devotion to Peter Pan as real as anything in a place called ‘Neverland’ could be. Rounded out by amazing performances by Bob Hoskins as Hook’s lackey Smee and the always delightful Maggie Smith as an elderly Wendy Darling, it would have taken a miracle to make this film sink.
Containing some of the smartest, sharpest dialogue that a film for children could hope for, the story Hook tells is quick and entertaining enough to keep kids interested, but is one of those rare gems that manages to hide plenty within the witty script and character interactions to keep their parents drawn in as well. From Tink’s overly dramatic attempts to make Peter come back to Neverland with her (right down to her hilariously faked ‘death’), to the series of tasks to get Peter back in ‘Pan’ form, to the battle of insults and subsequent food fight at the Lost Boys’ table, the film is stuffed with physical and emotional humor that easily appeals to children, while other parts, especially those including Peter’s children Jack and Maggie, are readily relatable, as the relationships between Peter and his children are explored. This is especially apparent in the scene where Hook takes Jack to his clock museum, and Jack lets out all of his frustration at Peter on innocent clocks, from trivial matters such as not being allowed to jump on his bed, to the deeper, more painful revelation of feeling abandoned by the person he’s supposed to trust most in the world.
At its heart, Hook is an action-comedy, but what truly makes a comedy is its ability to put real moments of feeling in its midst and not have it drag the rest of the film down or seem out of place. What you never quite understand until you’re older is how very bitter it must have been for Wendy Darling to go through her life in love with the idea of Peter Pan, wish with all her heart to keep him, only to have it be her granddaughter that he decides to give up Neverland for; or how deep Tinkerbell’s love and loyalty to Peter must run to keep her at his side, even with the realization that he would never see her as anything but a playmate because of her size – and to have that love and loyalty rewarded for one brief, shining moment where she could make him understand, once and for all, that what she felt for him was so much deeper than what he’d always thought. Combine that with the feelings of loss and abandonment that the Lost Boys showed when Peter Banning returned with no initial memory of them, and what you have is a film that is so wonderfully complex that it’s almost impossible to not be drawn in, from one age to the next.
All in all, Hook is a wonderful, beautiful exploration of one of the most-loved children’s tales ever written, and one of the few movies that will grow with a person from childhood to adulthood, holding up even after years and years of ‘growing up’. It just goes to show that, even if you grow up, you don’t have to stop believing in all the things that made childhood fun – especially when it’s something that you can share with your own children sometime down the road – but that there’s also fun to be had in the growing up itself, made all the sweeter by some of the bitter times. Because you know, without a doubt, that even if Wendy Darling had known how it would all end, she wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
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