The Secret Garden (1993)

(On Cable TV, August 2022) I didn’t particularly like The Secret Garden, but it’s more accurate to say that it left me cold than to pretend that I found fault with it. Simply put, it’s a film made for other, much-younger audiences. As an old-school Hollywood buff, I was curious to see how the film would compare to its earlier 1949 adaptation—one that’s often best known for being a black-and-white film with striking Technicolor sequences to reinforce some of its wondrous themes. But this version is from 1993, a time when showing much of a film made for younger audiences in black-and-white would have been commercial suicide. So, there’s little in director Agnieszka Holland’s version to make it as distinctive as its earlier version was. But what it lacks in punch makes up for consistency, because it’s competently executed from beginning to end, charting the gradual awakening of a family when given access to a quasi-magical garden. It’s all rather well done, even if the lack of energy and visual distinction may leave a few curmudgeonly sorts such as myself feeling as if The Secret Garden plays it far too safe. Oh well—not all movies are required to cater to me, and righteously so—imagine how dull it would be if they did.