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Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Techno dazzle and inter-personal craft makes it enchanting

Film: The Secret Garden

 

 

Cast: Amir Wilson, Anne Lacey, Colin Firth, David Verrey, Dixie Egerickx, Fozzie, Isis Davis, Julie Walters, Maeve Dermody, Richard Hansell, Tommy Gene Surridge

Director: Marc Munden

Rating: * * * ½

Runtime: 99 mins

 

 

A timely re-iteration of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic English children’s novel “The Secret Garden,” published originally in 1911, this screen adaptation by Marc Munden and screenwriter Jack Thorne brings to the fore coping mechanisms of children caught in conflict situations, suffering loss and devastation. This is a classic, story about Mary Lennox( played in precociously old-worldly, weary fashion by Dixie Egerickx), born in India to wealthy British parents who suddenly die during the cusp of India’s Independence, getting repatriated to Misselthwaite Manor, England and foisted into the reluctant care of a socially challenged elderly uncle Archibald Craven (Colin Firth)with a sickly son Colin (Edan Hayhurst) hiding away in his room. The Manor is of course run by a stern disciplinarian, Mrs Medlock (Julie Walters).  Since the Covid 19 pandemic has also rendered thousands of children orphans, this story that highlights the imaginary world that children build in order to escape from the cruelty of the real one, is certainly likely to touch an emotional chord in many young devastated hearts.  

 

 

It’s been 27 years since the last screen adaptation (Agnieszka Holland’s in1993) so the film will well be a fresh excursion for a whole new generation. The narrative opens with a heart-rending prologue. Taking a detour from the Edwardian setting of the original story, here it’s 1947 with India-Pakistan partition and the cholera epidemic casting its ominous presence on the lives and loves of the imperialists and their agitating subjects. Mary who has been rendered spoiled and wilful by a personal ayah at her beck and call suddenly finds herself at a loss after her parents’ tragic untimely deaths. Shipped back to England, to the care of her mother’s sister’s husband living in the Yorkshire moors haunted by the ghastly aftermath of World War II - it’s obviously not a setting for a young child devastated by loss, loneliness and craving for tender loving empathetic care is likely to find succour in. But the resilience of young children can never be overlooked - as we see Mary building her own imaginary world of loving adults and tranquil, enchanting settings while seeing out the other children similarly dysfunctional and forging an unforgettable bond with them in a magical realm of their creation. 

 

The setting is picture-book striking, the colour scheme is vivid and gorgeous to the eye, the production design with it’s gothic overtones and decadent magnificence looks impeccable and the secret imaginary garden is magic realism with a photo real enchantment all its own. Cinematographer Lol Crawley’s camerawork is stunningly crafted and Marc Munden’s narrative, despite its techno dazzle sets out to win hearts with its empathetic understanding of children and their unique ways of grappling with crisis. Above all this film belongs to the young ones playing the central characters including Colin and a local boy named Dickon (Amir Wilson). But it’s Dixie Egerickx as Mary who makes the film her own by putting on a stunningly intuitive performance that is sure to get noticed at the awards.  

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