Books, books, books! Who reads anymore? Why would you need to? In 2020 alone we’ve had adaptations of Little Women, Emma, The Call of the Wild, The Invisible Man, Rebecca, and The Secret Garden, with Black Beauty planned for Disney+ later this year. These were all books available as Scholastic Classics when I was a kid, I’m sure of it. Warner Bros. last adapted The Secret Garden in 1993, and I came across the pages of the novel, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, only a few years ago myself. The short of it is… I really like it, so this movie may find me a hard person to please – pfft, don’t they all.
The Secret Garden is directed by Marc Munden. After losing her family in a war-torn India, young ward Mary (Dixie Egerickx), returns to England, taken in by her uncle, Lord Archibald Craven (Colin Firth). In a large mansion, Mary is expected to tend to herself during the day, and is quite demanding of the staff, who are less inclined to listen to her as her servants abroad. Mary wanders the grounds, coming across a secret garden; tranquil and peaceful. In the house, she also discovers she has a sickly cousin Colin (Edan Hayhurst), who rarely gets out of bed, fearing further illness. Colin can be just as stubborn as Mary, but the two form a friendship and seek to stay in Lord Craven’s favour. The movie features Julie Walters and Isis Davis as housekeepers, as well.
From The Secret Garden trailers, I’ve been expecting a CGI symphony, produced to look similarly vibrant as Dolittle, earlier this year. The robin that beckons Mary is quite easily CGI, but the garden is so spectacularly designed, and often hard to tell. The entire movie is beautiful to look at; the walls of the mansion are painted with murals or hold a worn blue affect. The secret garden seems to extends on forever, encompassing a wide range of flora, including bamboo and ferns that make it look more like a jungle and a forest than a garden. It looks cool when the branches move to aid Mary to climb, but it’s one of a few examples where the garden unfortunately becomes as mystical as it is secret. Personally, it wouldn’t design the secret garden like it is here; it’s too big for one, and what I always loved about The Secret Garden was that it isn’t magic; it’s not a wonderland or a dreamscape. It just is; a natural place beautiful enough to inspire rejuvenation. It’s in contrast to the mansion, that is dark and stuffy, and it’s where Mary finds a passion outside herself and the fresh air does Colin the world of good. For me, The Secret Garden inspires you to explore your own backyard, and not dwell in one spot. By integrating ‘magic’ into the ‘secret’ garden, undercuts the tangible power of the original message. I sadly remember saying similar things about The Call of the Wild earlier this year, about how the desire to add mysticism does a disservice to why these stories are classics in the first place, and have stood the test of time. I mean, what are they going to do next; remake Charlotte’s Web with a hypnotic spider and a line-dancing pig?
Positively, the movie makes room to be sympathetic to Mary, taking time to portray her solitude in India. Mary is still sharp and rude, but it’s evident she’s got her guard up, and knows no other way since her previous servants tolerated this kind of attitude. Honestly, it’s the dog that gives Mary a friend to relax with, and not so much the garden. Mary names the dog Jemimah, after the first Jemimah, a dolly thrown away in a fit of passion to be grown up, gone the way of Wilson the volleyball (Castaway). Without having the character of Ben the gardener to bounce ideas off, Mary doesn’t spend her days with anyone else in the garden until Dickon (Amir Wilson), in which she shows the secret garden. I don’t think the movie truly makes it clear what clammy Colin ails from by the time he spits into his hand for Mary either – exacerbated by COVID fears, I’m thinking maybe there’s a good reason the staff have told Mary to steer clear of his end of the house; something contagious maybe. In the book, do they force Colin outside against his will? Or do they convince him? I can’t remember. The house burning down is a new idea though. The movie favours flashbacks in real time, which yield a lively effect to relay the past closeness of Colin and Mary’s mothers. But again, magically, it inspires an ending where Lord Craven overcomes his isolation through a reimagined memory or ‘spirit’ of his deceased wife. Basically, ghosts. Mary also has a vision of her mother too, and she is assured all is well.
The movie has made its changes and I just know I don’t warm to the back end of the movie like I did the original book. So, I guess what I’m saying is…… the book is better. Nah, as much pompousness aside as possible, I think I prefer the 1993 version of The Secret Garden over this one. As a stand-alone movie, The Secret Garden of today does work well enough, helped along by a sweet score. It’s a delight to look at, and Egerickx is a convincing presence for a young actress. I’m sure the idea has been around for a while – ‘what if the secret garden was a magical garden as well?’ Story wise, not for me, but have at it.
3.0
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