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The Secret Garden
Aug. 21st, 2018 09:09 amI’ve seen Agnieszhka Holland’s The Secret Garden before, but who could possibly do a month of Agnes movies without taking the opportunity to watch it again? It has one of the most glorious gardens in all of movie-dom, with enormous rose bushes and statues and a fountain and a lily pond, and it has the uncommon sense to wallow in the garden in all its wild glory.
In fact, one of the best things about this movie is its willingness to revel in over-the-top everything. Dickon doesn’t just have a pet crow, he appears to be followed around by a bevy of animals at all times: not just regular farm animals like lambs and kids, but wild creatures too: Julie and I noted a fawn, a stoat, and even a fox. Colin’s father isn’t just kind of remote, he wears a veritable Cape of Drama to match the Byronically long hair that makes his long face look hound-dog mournful even when he smiles. And Mary and Colin -
The actors playing Mary and Colin must have had so much fun making this movie. And they’re so good, too! Less skillful actors (particularly less skillful child actors) might have made some of their more intense emotional moments look hammy - like the scene where Colin throws up his arms to hide his face from the sunlight, like he’s Dracula. Or the enormous fit he throws thereafter, once he realizes that Mary is no longer by his side to protect him from the scary scary sunshine. And then there’s Mary’s towering rage when she storms back in, arms akimbo, and informs him, “Everybody hates you!”
This shocks Colin into silence for about two seconds, and then he’s giving it back to her as good as he gets. It’s great to watch them argue because they’re so well-matched: they’re both short-tempered and haughty and filled with a sense of their own importance, but also not very far below the surface hungry for love and, just as important, for something to do. Something important.
All in all this OTT drama is the perfect expression of the Frances Hodgson Burnett spirit: in all her books she has the perfect instinct for the most dramatically effective moment. (Is there a moment of more perfect pathos than the revelation that Sara’s father is dead - at Sara’s eleventh birthday party, where she was to receive her Last Doll?) Even the scenes that were not in the book, like the part where Mary and Colin and Dickon gather round a bonfire to magically summon Colin’s father home, are perfectly in keeping with its spirit.
In fact, one of the best things about this movie is its willingness to revel in over-the-top everything. Dickon doesn’t just have a pet crow, he appears to be followed around by a bevy of animals at all times: not just regular farm animals like lambs and kids, but wild creatures too: Julie and I noted a fawn, a stoat, and even a fox. Colin’s father isn’t just kind of remote, he wears a veritable Cape of Drama to match the Byronically long hair that makes his long face look hound-dog mournful even when he smiles. And Mary and Colin -
The actors playing Mary and Colin must have had so much fun making this movie. And they’re so good, too! Less skillful actors (particularly less skillful child actors) might have made some of their more intense emotional moments look hammy - like the scene where Colin throws up his arms to hide his face from the sunlight, like he’s Dracula. Or the enormous fit he throws thereafter, once he realizes that Mary is no longer by his side to protect him from the scary scary sunshine. And then there’s Mary’s towering rage when she storms back in, arms akimbo, and informs him, “Everybody hates you!”
This shocks Colin into silence for about two seconds, and then he’s giving it back to her as good as he gets. It’s great to watch them argue because they’re so well-matched: they’re both short-tempered and haughty and filled with a sense of their own importance, but also not very far below the surface hungry for love and, just as important, for something to do. Something important.
All in all this OTT drama is the perfect expression of the Frances Hodgson Burnett spirit: in all her books she has the perfect instinct for the most dramatically effective moment. (Is there a moment of more perfect pathos than the revelation that Sara’s father is dead - at Sara’s eleventh birthday party, where she was to receive her Last Doll?) Even the scenes that were not in the book, like the part where Mary and Colin and Dickon gather round a bonfire to magically summon Colin’s father home, are perfectly in keeping with its spirit.
