Wendy

Nearly eight years after his Beasts of the Southern Wild bafflingly received widespread acclaim, writer/director Benh Zeitlin is back on his bullshit with Wendy, though his twist on the Peter Pan legend resurrects many of the same problematic elements that, in my view, sank his beloved debut.

Doubling down on his infatuation with dizzy, handheld camerawork, excessive close-ups, pretentious child narration and underdirected, amateur performances guaranteed to be interpreted by certain viewers as raw, unadulterated brilliance, the filmmaker continues to mistake following kids around and letting them act “naturally” for profound filmmaking.

Even with the built-in, er, hook of J.M. Barrie familiarity, Wendy is a tough slog as its titular heroine (Devin France) and two brothers follow Peter (Yashua Mack) via train and then boat to an island with an active volcano and a whalelike entity called Mother who keeps them and others young as long as they believe in her.

Consistent with Beasts, the film’s strength lies mainly in its intentionally squalid production design and, to a lesser degree, montages cued to an occasionally stirring musical score by Dan Romer. But while Zeitlin can clearly craft a good-looking film when he wants to, his overreliance on nonprofessional actors again proves distracting, especially with kids whose classically expressive faces can’t hide the fact that they simply can’t act.