there is a new remake of the classic book The Secret Garden, and I understand the film makers updated it and changed the plot a bit to make it more palatable for modern kids.
But alas it doesn't quite work.
here is the trailer, which is alas better than the film itself, which is boring:
This remake of the classic story is visually stunning, but alas gets the people/personalities wrong.
the book is set in the early 1900's, but this remake has the story set in the late 1940s, supposedly to make it more relevant to the modern world, overlooking the fact that the modern audience would also be clueless to the reality of post war poverty in England.
So the indoor sets are gloomy: you have a great mansion that has few servants and is empty of furniture, presumably to make the beauty of the garden more attractive in contrast.
But the classic story contrasts the material wealth of the house with the spiritual poverty that Mary confronts in her new home.
but the biggest problem is more than superficial settings, but in the failure to create sympathetic believable characters.
First of all, both Mary and her crippled cousin are too old: in the book Mary is 10, but here she is older, and her cousin is obviously even older, about 13-14 years old, which makes her cousin's character not believable.
Colin is dying, but one is never sure why. The backstory is that his father worry he would inherit the hunchback (aka scosoliosis).
But scoliosis per se does not cause leg weakness, and earlier films stress this is why he couldn't walk, hinting that he was crippled from his premature birth, caused by his mother's fall from a swing in her garden.
Bedridden folk are common in Victorian novels, as are people dying of unknown causes at a young age.
As a doctor, I interpreted Colin's problem as being sickly due to his premature birth, and perhaps with leg weakness and mild scoliosis either from a birth injury/ cerebral palsy, spina bifida occulta, or from Polio which he caught due to his weakened immune system....
In the days before antibiotics, any of these could result in dying at a young age (often from pneumonia, flu or tuberculosis due to the weakened body), but of course none of the films get clinical: like a lot of victorian stories, they just hint about such things.
Of course, modern children don't know about polio or tuberculosis or young people dying of infectious disease, so I wonder how a modern kid would see this almost teenage boy acting like a spoiled 4 years old insisting he is going to die, but never mind.
The second problem? The garden is "magic", but it is never explained why. Because it is pretty? Because all those flowers grew wonderfully without a gardener to take care of it?
And this points out the real problem of the plot.
The point of "the Secret Garden" was the regeneration of the spirit by working in the garden: by creating beauty, they healed their wounded spirit.
Mary, spoiled by her amah but neglected by her parents, learned about loving others by finding the neglected garden, and then, with the help of a local country boy Dickens, she started weeding and planting seeds there. As the garden recovered it's beauty, Mary's self esteem improved, making her willing to reach out to her cousin Colin so that he too could be cured.
Later, as Colin became stronger mentally and physically, they both reached out to Colin's fearful father, who was also saved from despair when he saw his son now healthy and no longer dying.
That part about the moral and spiritual regeneration by doing creative work in the garden was left out of this remake: instead, the children just played in the garden and because it was magic, they were cured.
so I give it a 3 out of 5 stars.
And advise you to instead watch the 1993 version of the film;
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