Film Review: THE SECRET GARDEN (2020): Boredom Ensues From a New Adaptation of a Classic Book

I Was Bored Watching The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden (2020) Film Review, a movie directed by Marc Munden, and starring Dixie Egerickx, Richard Hansell, Tommy Gene Surridge, Julie Walters, Maeve Dermody, Colin Firth, Amir Wilson, Edan Hayhurst, Rupert Young, Jemma Powell, and Sonia Goswami.

The Secret Garden is boring. It’s boring because its characters are so goddamned boring. And it’s characters are so goddamned boring, because they spoon feed you their feelings rather than demonstrate why they feel a certain way. This just feels fake to me. I don’t want the protagonist telling me her mother was emotionally distant, because I want to see that estrangement acted out in front of me. It’s a shame, because this boredom could all have been avoided if the creators had just stuck to basic Screenwriting 101 principles. Instead we ended up with characters that have vague motivations that we can’t relate to and whose struggles and achievements we can’t connect with on a human level.

After her parents die in India, the young Mary Lennox (Dixie Egerickx) is sent to live with her crotchety uncle Archibald Craven (Colin Firth) at his estate on the moors of Yorkshire. Lord Craven grieves for his late wife, Mary’s aunt, and keeps his son Colin (Edan Hayhurst) psychosomatically bedridden for fear of losing him as well. It’s then up to the headstrong Mary to teach Uncle stick-up-the-butt a lesson in not living in fear with the help of a mysterious and possibly secret garden. I say ‘possibly’ because it is never firmly established whether there is actual magic in the movie or whether the kids just think there is, which was pretty disappointing. And no, the ambiguity was not actually clever or interesting, as it serves no discernible purpose in terms of plot, theme, or characterization. The writing is just frustratingly lazy and annoying. Although one gem shines through, perhaps unsurprisingly, in Colin Firth, who parlays his awkward lines with mastery. But I really can’t say that I’m surprised that Firth was the most enjoyable to watch in a movie that features three inexperienced child actors as leads.

I imagine this story would have been charming when it was first published in 1911 during the innocence of the pre-war era. But audiences’ tastes have changed in response to over a century of conflict and philosophical uncertainty; and this genre of traditional English children’s’ novels just feels impossible for any contemporary adult to relate to. It really is a shame though, because I tend to love children’s movies and books like The Lion King and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, as great artists know how to appeal to the palates of both children and adults. I mean, did we really need another iteration of The Secret Garden when there are so many better underutilized options? We’ve had over a hundred years of film, television, and theater adaptations of the story; so unless you’ve got some amazing new perspective on the source material, I think it’s best to leave it be.

It seems like these kinds of stories appeal to children, because the reality is that most people’s childhoods really weren’t all that fun and whimsical, as we can see in the last few generations who have spent most of their time studying and futzing around online rather than experiencing the outside world. I suppose stories like The Secret Garden and contemporary YA fiction fulfill the same sort of escapist needs that adults satisfy with action movies and police procedurals, meaning that we all feel let down by how reality never resembled the fanciful stories of our youths, so we’re drawn to writers who will re-imagine our collective childhood experience adorned with a jetpack and spyglass. I guess I’d recommend this movie for parents with children and perhaps for melancholy adults feeling nostalgic for a childhood full of adventure and whimsy that never truly existed.

Rating: 3/10

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