This movie is "Finding Neverland" meets "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with a heavy emphasis on the "Finding Neverland" aspect.

One supposes that the filmmakers gathered the big-time cast in an effort to obscure the fact that they were making a movie that had, more or less, already been made. Of course, that never stopped Hollywood before and "Neverwas" joins a long list of mirror movies like "Armaggedon"/"Deep Impact", "Ants"/"A Bug's Life" and so on, and so on, and so on. The only thing distinguishing this movie from its mirror predecessors is that "Neverwas" went straight-to-video.

Like "Finding Neverland," "Neverwas" revolves around a writer and mystical children's book. Zach Riley (Aaron Eckhart) is a psychiatrist who takes a job at a middling facility called Millwood in order to find out more information about his father, T.L. Pierson (Nick Nolte), author of the famous tome "Neverwas." The head of the place is Dr. Peter Reed (William Hurt). Riley's group assistant is Martin (Bill Bellamy). His patients include Gabriel Finch (Ian McKellen) and Patrick (Alan Cumming). His mother is Katherine (Jessica Lange). He meets up with an old childhood pal, Ally (Brittany Murphy).

Gabriel believes that he's the king of Neverwas, which piques Zach's curiosity, leading to the inevitable rediscovery of his past and along with it, his zest for life. This pretty much what all these movies trot out as their theme, and you can bet that every emotional moment is accompanied by some kind of moment music to make everything seem right. You can also bet that every dramatic scene is tossed at the audience like a cinder block, thudding on the ground, dull and lifeless.

"Neverwas" should never have been.