THE SECRET GARDEN
A film review by Jon A. Webb
Copyright 1993 Jon A. Webb
Although I have not read it, I understand the children's book THE SECRET GARDEN to be a cloying, precious story of a young girl's restoring herself and her crippled cousin through a secret, magical garden she restores. I expected this film to be a particularly effective adaptation of this book to the screen, because of its direction (by Agnieszka Holland, who did EUROPA, EUROPA and OLIVIER, OLIVIER) and its production (from Francis Ford Coppola's studios, Zoetrope)--as well as because of the preview, which presents the film from this point of view.
But instead, this film is the sort that comes along every only every ten years or so; true, competent, professional cinematic art. Uniquely, to my knowledge, Holland has achieved this level of art in a movie that can be appreciated by anyone, from a child to an adult. It is a remarkable accomplishment, which I think puts Holland on the level as the finest directors.
She does this by interpreting the novel in a very realistic and child-oriented way. Children see the world very differently from adults, and not at all in the sweet and precious way we like to think; they believe in magic, not always the good kind (e.g., LORD OF THE FLIES), and for them young animals are not only cute, but also models and symbols of growth and fecundity.
Holland incorporates many references to the young girl's emerging sexuality without ever seeming heavy-handed or obvious about it. It is not accidental that the accident that sends her back to England occurs just after she has physically expressed her anger towards her parents, seen them kissing, and hidden under the bed. But from the girl's point of view these are real events, not symbols, and that is how Holland presents them to us.
Most of all, this is a really good movie. You will want to meet these people, to see the garden.
I don't remember the names of any of the actors or actresses, except for Maggie Smith, who plays the evil governess of the household. But I especially liked the girl's maid, the girl, and the young boy who helped her with the garden. The maid, in particular, stands out; I hope to see her again soon.
-- J
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews