Synopsis: The timeless tale of a special place where magic, hope and love grow.

It’s a special garden where friendships blossom, illnesses fade away and sorrows flee. There troubled orphan Mary (Kate Maberly), her spoiled, sickly cousin Colin (Heydon Prowse) and kindly county boy Dickon (Andrew Knott) discover that a world of caring can make a world of difference. “If you look the right way,” Mary says, “you can see the whole world is a garden.”
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The Secret Garden (1993) 8.25

I haven’t read ‘The Secret Garden’. In fact, until I saw this movie, approximately a dozen years ago, I had never even heard of it and had no idea what this was about.

But I worked in a video store at the time and I felt compelled to watch as many of the movies they had on the shelf as possible so that I had a sense of what customers might like… or not. Sometimes I ended up with duds I’d sleep my way through (a couple of ‘Hellraiser’ sequels come to mind, especially… ), and sometimes I’d stumble upon a hidden gem.

This Francis Ford Coppola production was one such gem.

‘The Secret Garden’ is a terrific little film. It’s essentially a metaphor for the reopening of long walled-up parts of ourselves. In this film, the hidden (or “secret”) garden is a mirror for the emotional awakening of our protagonist, Mary, who is a recently orphaned, but unbelievably spoiled, child. She has repressed all warmth, hope and love of life due to her upbringing, but tending to this garden helps her bloom. Also, wilful as she is, she helps her ailing cousin back to health in her own way – despite the protests of the housekeeper (played here by the incomparable Maggie Smith )

I don’t really have that much to say about the film other than it’s pretty much pitch-perfect. Apparently, director Agnieszka Holland is extremely fond of the book, having played a huge part of her childhood and I think it shows: she is just reverential enough of the story to make it magical, but not so much that it becomes saccharine. The film is made with such care (and, presumably, love) that it’s would be difficult to complain about it from a purely technical standpoint: the locations, the cast, the pacing, the music… everything is exactly right.

The cast is all quite good – enough so that I genuinely empathized with most of the characters, even though they are terribly imperfect people. I think it’s a tribute to both the cast and the writer, as it’s common to empathize with one, but not many characters in the majority of films. Sincerely, even the child actors were pretty good (not of Kirsten Dunst, Anna Paquin or Haley Joel Osment calibre, but still…). It probably helps that the script doesn’t contrive drama or tension, for example having the cousin get hurt or sick due to Mary’s efforts; it was all about the magical awakening of the girl, the boy, the father and the garden.

The film not only feels real, it looks convincing too. It was shot on real locations and, while they had to use many different ones to piece the setting together, at least it wasn’t a set. The difference between the two approaches is quite palpable, and I think that whoever made that decision was entirely right. In the same sense, the use of real animals and greenery in the secret garden is what makes the film more magical; if they had used fake birds and trees and so forth (or, Lord forbid, CGI! ), there would have been far less immersion in the moment, in the children’s awe and joy.

My only issues are with a small scene, about 2/3 of the way in, which was poorly edited (it felt cropped in the way movies are hacked to break for TV commercials), and the ending – which seemed to sputter a bit, slightly running out of steam. But, let’s face it: those are minor grievances in the big picture.

All told, ‘The Secret Garden’ is a wonderful film. Granted, it will not attract everyone, because it will seem not adult or gritty enough for some (you know who you are! ). Well, either one likes the material or one doesn’t. But, from an objective standpoint, it’s an indisputably well-made film that achieves all that it intends to do. It deserves respect for that alone – and acclaim if one also appreciates its timeless tale of hope.