THE SECRET GARDEN
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: THE SECRET GARDEN is an artistically perfect rendering of a horribly cloying Edwardian children's story. The Transcendentalist view of the perfection of nature sops right through and saturates this story. It tells how one little girl is able to redeem three people's lives through the magic of a wonderful garden full of bunnies and lambs and foxes all playing together. The film is supremely crafted but for someone else's taste. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4). An artistic +2; an entertainment -1.
When it comes to film, I have no guilty pleasures. A common game among film fans is to say what films are bad, but that they enjoy anyway. I just do not accept the concept that a film is bad but I like it in spite of its obvious faults. If I like a film, it really is a good film, to my mind. I may be one of the few people who enjoys a film such as LIFEFORCE or EXORCIST II, but to me that is just because others simply do not appreciate that these really are films with positive qualities. On the other hand, I do accept that there are good films I just cannot appreciate. I recognize quality but I still cannot bring myself to like this wonderful piece of art. Ingmar Bergman is probably a really good filmmaker and I admit it, but THE SEVENTH SEAL is his only film that I find enjoyable, and then only if I am in the right mood. CHARIOTS OF FIRE is very well made, but it does nothing at all for me. THE SECRET GARDEN is a beautiful and near-flawless adaptation of a gawd-awful Edwardian children's story that would have done better to remain in a dusty box in the attic.
Kate Maberly plays Mary Lennox, a ten-year-old born in India around the turn of the century. She hates India and she hates her parents. When an earthquake kills her parents she is sent back to England to find more things to hate. She goes to live in her uncle's mansion which seems larger than Yankee Stadium and somehow feels dead wherever you go. Of her uncle there is little sign. He mourns for the death of his wife, a twin to Mary's mother. The mansion is ruled over my Mrs. Medlock (played by Maggie Smith), who has no use for little Mary. Mary is more or less expected to sit around all day and ignore the sobbing coming from someone about whom nobody will tell her. But our adolescent Jane Eyre discovers on the grounds of the mansion a garden that was kept by her aunt and has since been locked up. In this garden there are bright colors, nature seems to be alive, and it's the only truly alive place on the whole grounds. Mary discovers the garden and discovers her sick, apparently dying cousin. Through her love of nature and the garden and with the help of two wonderful servants, little Mary saves her cousin's life, makes her own life worth living, and pulls her uncle out of his miasma of self-pity. But none of that is remotely surprising when you see the magic of nature in the hidden garden. Here robins understand and love children. Sweet little bunnies play with chubby little foxes and get along perfectly well. Little new-born lambs test their wobbly legs for the first time. It is a place where there can be no doubts that God is an Englishman and this is his own personal petting zoo.
THE SECRET GARDEN is a project of American Zoetrope, who in 1979 produced THE BLACK STALLION, the first half of which is a truly wonderful piece of filmmaking. And some of THE SECRET GARDEN captures some of the same feel. It was directed by Agnieszka Holland, who previously directed EUROPA, EUROPA and OLIVIER, OLIVIER. (I wonder if she wanted to rename this one GARDEN, GARDEN.) The photography (by Roger Deakins) is wonderful, even if what is in front of the camera is exaggerated and unctuous. When the house should looks dismal, it looks really dismal. The grounds are gray and depressing. Inside the garden all of a sudden every detail jumps out at the viewer--every corny bunny and lamb. Holland just perfectly captures a mood so dismally ugly or so cloyingly sweet that I, for one, felt like gagging. I admit what she did, she did well. Artistically this is a +2 film; for my experience it is a -1. Let me split the difference and give this film a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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