Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-
Special Effects: B

Come Away has a premise that’s hard not to love: Peter and Alice are siblings, and they turn out to be Peter Pan and Alice from Alice in Wonderland. This movie thus becomes a combined prequel to both classic texts.

The pedigree isn’t half bad either, starting with director Brenda Chapman, who directed and wrote the Pixar film Brave in 2012, and has story credit on both Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994). Come Away thus is her first foray into feature-length live action, and she brings the imagination of a longtime animator to the proceedings.

Cast in the roles of Peter and Alice’s parents are David Oyelowo and Angelina Jolie, making for a kind of representation heretofore never seen particularly in nineteenth century London cinema: an interracial couple with multiracial children. Oyelowo has himself noted that “It so happens to be a family the likes of which would and could have historically existed in that time in British history, yet not the norm of what you are used to seeing,” in response to the film getting “review bombed” by bored racists prior to the film’s release. That alone motivates me to support this film.

Except . . . good-hearted as Come Away is, as lovely as its visuals often are, in the end it all just falls a little flat. The central conflict of the story is the death of Peter and Alice’s eldest brother, and how the family copes with the tragedy. Come Away qualifies as a fantasy in its own right, and classic fantasies are no stranger to these types of dark elements. It also presents children’s imaginations as a perfectly reasonable escape from this kind of sadness. And yet, the film could stand to be a lot more imaginative, and it could stand to be more effectively poignant. Instead it resists going too far in either direction.

The children actors, Jordan A. Nash as Peter and Keira Chansa as Alice, are well cast, if almost too precocious in their deliveries. There’s something nearly unsettling in their glowing dispositions, the way they maintain bright smiles the entire time they play, projecting a sort of glossy wholesomeness as they engage in pretend sword fights. And then the direct literary references get a tad weird, such as the “potion” Alice drinks turning out to be her mother’s bottle of psychotropics,

I wanted to be moved by Come Away, or delighted, or better yet both in alternating intervals. The movie is pleasant enough, though a tad sadder than one might desire from it. Not even supporting turns by Michael Caine The Wire’s Clarke Peters can quite lift it up. It’s not a bummer per se, but its charms are oddly muted. It could have been a new sort of fairy tale classic, but at best you finish it thinking: I guess that was fine.

Overall: B-