"The Secret Garden"
                          A Film Review
                               by
                      Linda Lopez McAlister
              "The Women's Show" WMNF-FM, Tampa, FL
                        August 21, 1993


    Agnieszka Holland is a rather peripatetic woman director who
was born and raised in Poland, learned her trade of filmmaking at
the Czech film conservatory, and in recent years has been living in
Paris and making highly acclaimed films such as "Europa, Europa"
and "Olivier, Olivier" (playing this week at the Beach Theater in
St. Petersburg Beach) that pull together talent and financing from
so many different sources it's been rather difficult to say what
nationality these films are.  But her latest opus, "The Secret
Garden," despite its 19th C. English locale and typically Eastern
European flavored crew, is definitely an American film--distributed
by Warner Brothers and produced under the auspices of Francis Ford
Coppola's Zoetrope Films.

   What difference does this make?  For one thing, it enlarges the
scope of the film; here Holland has a larger budget to work with
and she's been able to pull together some major talents in the area
of cinematography (Roger Deakins) and art direction (Stuart Craig)
to create really lavish and magical sets and effects for this film.
It is, of course, a screen adaptation  (written by Caroline
Thompson) of the children's story "The Secret Garden" by Frances
Hodgson Barnett.  It is NOT (as you might think) a filmed version
of the Broadway musical from a couple of years back based on the
same story, rather it's a whole new film version with its own
somewhat interesting musical score.

   Somehow I had missed this book as a child and had not seen the
Broadway version so I came to this film relatively innocent of the
story.  As a result I had a number of surprises awaiting me.  For
one thing, though this is thought of as a children's film,
especially since the main characters are three children of about 10
or 11, it really isn't a film for small kids.  There is at least
one scene (of the earthquake in which Mary Lennox's parents are
killed) that could be quite traumatic to very young children. And
though there is a lot in the way of nature scenes and animals,
birds, and flowers, this ain't Disney, so they're not cutsied up in
a way that would be attractive to little ones.  Besides there's a
lot here that really speaks more to adults than children, with the
result (if the little kids sitting around me were any indication)
that most of them under about 8 or 9 are going to be bored, I
think, by the film.   Older kids and adults are a different story.

   One of the great strengths of the film is the casting.  Using
virtually unknown mostly child actors (with the exception of Maggie
Smith as the person in charge of Misslethwaite Manor when the
Master's away), Holland is able to elicit marvelous performances.
Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly) is the girl whose parents have been killed in
India and who is sent back to England to live in her reclusive and
embittered Uncle's house.  Rather than the uncle (John Lynch) being the
standard old curmudgeon, he is (logically) in his '30s and has long
flowing locks that make him really look the part of a Victorian
gentleman of a certain ilk.  At first Mary's miserable here, but as
she begins to explore the place she makes several discoveries:
first an overgrown locked garden that no one has been in in ten
years and then the existence of her cousin Colin (played by Heydon
Prowse) an invalid child who has never been out of his bed and who
is totally ignored by his father for he is the too painful reminder
of his mother who died in childbirth.  With the help of servant
children Martha (Laura Crossley) and her brother Dickon (Andrew
Knott) Mary changes from a sullen and insolent rich girl into a
lively, radiant, self-possessed person as she becomes a part of the
healing natural world of the garden and its denizens.

   I found the story slight but the visual images and the
characterizations and rich detail intriguing and compelling.  The
one thing that made me uncomfortable was the idealization of the
class relationships.  While it may be true (I don't really know)
that working class and upper class children could have played
together as children in 19th C. England, the idea (seemingly left
completely unquestioned) that all these people live happily ever
after together at the end is one that anyone with the tiniest
knowledge of how class structures operated at that time and place
will find very hard to swallow.

   While I don't think this is a particularly great film nor is it
Holland's best work, it is a little bit off beat and, I have to
say, I enjoyed it.  If you're looking for something gentle and
uplifting to see with your preadolescent kids, this might be the
thing.

   For the WMNF "Women's Show" this is Linda Lopez McAlister on
Women and Film.

Copyright 1993 by Linda Lopez McAlister.  No portion of this review
may be reprinted or reproduced without the permission of the
author.