作家巴里（约翰尼·德普 Johnny Depp饰）正处于灵感枯竭期。他每天经过公园的时候，都会看见里面有一帮小孩在嬉戏。他停下脚步来观察，原来孩子在玩海盗游戏，孩子们还热情邀请他加入海盗队伍。巴里成了一个大孩子，在队伍中虽然高出一个头，却玩得不亦乐乎——道具、角色、各色 情节、公园变成一个快乐的幻想世界。这段经历，成了巴里创作《小飞侠》的灵感源泉。 　　孩子的母亲（凯特·温丝莱特 Kate Winslet 饰）是一个寡妇，她也受到了这里快乐的气氛感染。巴里和他们相处就像一家人一样，享受着单纯的快乐，然而也难免招人闲话。而巴里的妻子，也终究只属于现实世界，走不进巴里的内心。 　　《小飞侠》的完稿上演，遭到了众人的质疑。然而演出后当地的反响，证明了巴里的坚持是正确的。但这时，巴里和孩子们正面临着一场来自现实世界的巨大打击，他们善良的母亲，正在离他们远去……1903 London. Renowned playwright J.M. Barrie (James)'s latest effort has garnered less than positive reviews, something he knew would be the case even before the play's mounting. This failure places pressure on James to write another play quickly as impresario Charles Frohman needs another to replace the failure to keep his theater viable. Out for a walk with his dog in part to let his creative juices flow, James stumbles upon the Llewelyn Davies family: recently widowed Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (the daughter of now deceased author George L. Du Maurier) and her four adolescent sons. James and the family members become friends, largely based on he and the boys being able to foster in each other the imagination of children, James just being the biggest among them in this regard. Sylvia also welcomes James into their lives, he who becomes an important and integral part of it. Among the six of them, the only one who does not want to partake is Sylvia's third, Peter Llewelyn Davies, who is still grieving the reality of their lives, where his father was there one day planning an outing for the family, and gone the next. Two other people who don't appreciate James in the Llewelyn Davies' lives are: his wife, Mary Barrie, who always feels the need to be the responsible one in their relationship and who feels threatened by his friendship with an unmarried woman; and Emma du Maurier, Sylvia's overbearing mother, who sees him as an obstacle to Sylvia moving on with her life with another potential husband, and an impediment to maintaining discipline within the boys. James still hopes to bring Peter out of his self-imposed shell, but in the process comes up with an idea for another play based on an amalgam of himself and Peter, that play which eventually becomes what Charles sees as a largely unmountable and thus doomed production called "Peter Pan". This process of helping Peter could take a step backward when it looks like Sylvia may imminently befall a similar fate to that of her late husband.