The Secret Garden Review (1993) – A whimsical, nostalgic, and sweet film about loneliness, grief and healing!
In keeping with our growth and healing theme for this month, we are reviewing and drinking to one of our childhood favorites, The Secret Garden! This movie is older, so there are some strange things in it in regards to servants, as well as weird racial issues. Despite that the film is still so sweet and nostalgic!
It is on the nose with the literal growing of plants to indicate personal growth but we still enjoy this film! It is a great one for this time of year not only because of the return of spring within the film, but because of the healing that the characters experience within the gorgeous garden.
We are super jealous of that beautiful garden! We love a more chaotic and natural approach to gardening, like an unruly fairy glen…it is too pretty! The whole film is too pretty! They filmed in a gorgeous location which does make us want to visit the English country side even more than we already do!
We do want to give a trigger warning, this film does have death, grief, racism, neglect and abuse in it. It is still a good film but we want to give a heads up!
We will do everything we can to not give too many spoilers in this review but there are likely to be some, so please take that into consideration and read cautiously.
Moving on to the film, it begins with a shot of a red desert, and a building with architecture that hints that we are in India. We then fade into a scene where our main character, a blond haired, blue eyed little girl named Mary (Kate Maberly), is being dressed by servants.
It is quite meticulous as there are a lot of parts and pieces to her period appropriate clothing. We are given a glimpse into the life of an incredibly lonely 10 year old little girl who has no playmates and has two psychologically, and emotionally neglectful parents. They are not present for Mary in any way and do not seem to care about Mary at all!
It feels like Mary is a doll to them. An object as opposed to a small person. Mary is resentful of her parents. Mary has clearly been parentified and she has to essentially parent herself emotionally, and psychologically. Because she is a child, she is not really up to the task so this makes her an incredibly serious and overly “mature” child.
As a result, Mary also struggles with expressing her emotions and emotional regulation, specifically sadness as she never allows herself to cry. It feels pointless to her. We potatoes really feel for Mary. Why have children if you do not want to have anything to do with them? Why have children if you do not like children, feel comfortable around children, etc.?
People will often say things like, “it’s different when it is your kid!” But this is simply not true for everyone. Children are not for everyone, and that is more than ok! Children were very clearly not for Mary’s parents. This is an unfortunate situation that still occurs to this day.
Mary’s parents enjoy parties, and spend a lot of their time partying. It is during one of their raucous parties that the area is hit by a massive earthquake that kills both of Mary’s parents! Mary survives because she happened to be hiding under her parent’s bed holding one of her mother’s prized possessions, an ivory elephant that she managed to break in her frustration with her parents.
The earthquake is devastating and scary. The movie does a very good job of making the audience almost feel the shaking of the earthquake for themselves!
As a result of the deaths of her parents Mary is literally shipped off to a relative in her parent’s native country, England.
In the next scene, we see her exiting a large boat with other children. The other children call her “sour” and sing the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary quite contrary” at her.
Mary shows no reaction and makes her way through the busy shipyard hoping that her relative is there to claim her. Her name is called aloud, “Mary Lennox!”…but there is no one there for her. She has to step aside with her luggage and wait.
She waits for hours. It is dark by the time an elderly woman named Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith) appears! She is dressed severely and appears to be strict, firm and no nonsense. She has come to claim her on behalf of Mary’s her uncle, Lord Archibald Craven (John Lynch), as Mrs. Medlock is his housekeeper. Mrs. Medlock makes it clear that she is not a kind person as she comments on Mary’s demeanor and her appearance rudely.
We do not think appearance is something any child should have to concern themselves with. But we do have to keep in mind that this is a period piece and young girls and women were judged and valued predominantly on how they looked. Like women are merely shiny objects.
This is, unfortunately, still an issue to this very day…it should not be…but it is still ever present in our society.
After many disparaging comments towards Mary and talking about Mary as if she were not sitting right in front of her. Mrs. Medlock whisks Mary into the coach to be on their way to Mary’s new home, Mistlethwaite Manor. Mrs. Medlock continues her inane and rude ramblings in the carriage. Mary remains silent and sullen.
The country side is so beautiful in this movie, we love all of the scenery shots!
We make it to the Manor and fade into the next morning. We see Mary in a giant bed, far too big for her, being woken up by Mrs. Medlock bringing in a breakfast tray and setting it on a table.
“Here’s your breakfast,” Mrs. Medlock says as she wipes her hands down the sides of her severe black dress.
“But I’m still in my nightgown!” Mary proclaims confused. Mrs. Medlock informs her that there are clothes in the wardrobe for her to change into after she eats. Still confused Mary asks, “Who’s going to dress me?”
Now Mrs. Medlock is confused, “You can’t dress yourself?”
Mary tells Mrs. Medlock that she always had her servants dress her. Mrs. Medlock is not having any of it, which causes Mary to react in a snobby, bratty and superior fashion.
At the start of the film, Mary has a tendency to behave poorly, but we have to remember to hold space for Mary as her life before coming to England was emotionally barren…even if she did get all of her basic physical needs met.
She was dressed, fed, and in some ways physically pampered when she was in India. It is easy for us to consider her spoiled when we think about what she physically had because she was.
Just because a child’s physical needs are met does not mean that the child is not being neglected or abused. Mary’s emotional and psychological needs were disregarded and devalued by her parents and the servants could not meet those needs. It was not the servant’s responsibility to do so in the first place.
Mary was treated as burdensome, unwanted and ignored. The reason we bring this up again, is because it is important to give Mary grace and patience. Her behavior can be grating at times, and her views on the world can also be annoying, dated and very narrow but…she is a child. We digress!
Next! We see Mary struggle to put on some boots so she can explore the manor. She keeps hearing odd wailing coming from what seems to be the walls. Curious she discovers a small door behind drapery and goes through it.
Running through the manor, we see how messy, and empty the manor looks and feels. Mary thinks of the house as “dead.” Which we found to be apt.
Through her exploring she comes across an overgrown and cluttered white room. Clearly a ladies room. This is the bedroom of her mother’s twin sister, who passed away years ago. Mary goes through her aunt’s room delicately and finds a large iron key in a music box.
She places the key back within the box. This key is significant and will come into play later in the film.
Leaving the room she follows the wailing sounds until Mrs. Medlock stumbles upon her. Furious, Mrs. Medlock drags Mary back to her room, gaslighting Mary the entire way regarding the wailing Mary was hearing.
Not long after Mary was tossed into her room, we meet our favorite character, Martha (Laura Crossley), who brings in some lunch for Mary. Martha has been assigned by Mrs. Medlock to take care of Mary.
Martha jokes around with Mary and assists Mary with her clothing during which Mary has quite a few snobby and bratty moments including a tantrum! Martha is so kind and patient with Mary. She is also attentive which Mary needs.
Martha encourages Mary to go outside and play, which is a foreign concept to Mary. Martha enjoys lightly teasing Mary to try to get a smile from her. Mary is such a serious little girl and she seems to struggle with understanding jokes.
Martha manages to get Mary to go outside and do some exploring across the estate. During her exploration, Mary comes across an overgrown garden! The fencing around the garden is completely covered in ivy and not easy to get in to.
Mary confronts one of the gardeners and asks about the garden. We learn that the garden was a gift to Mary’s aunt from her uncle. In his grief, her uncle had the garden locked up and banned anyone from entering.
Feeling reflective and curious, Mary asks Martha about the garden the next day. Martha dissuades her from thinking of it and tries to help Mary learn how to be a kid. She even helps teach Mary how to play with a jump rope.
While outside playing, and with the help of a cute little robin bird, she finds the entrance to the garden! She rushes back into the manor, collects the large key she found in her aunt’s room earlier rushes back outside and opens up the gate!
The garden looks overgrown, barren and disheveled. Mary contentedly explores the garden, and does a little amateur gardening! The Secret Garden becomes a place of renewal, growth and refuge for Mary.
As we progress through the film we meet more cute animals, and more interesting characters. The wailing in the house is not in Mary’s head! We watch Mary and others grow as people, become more independent and most importantly we see Mary learn how to play and be a kid.
Grief permeates this film and it takes a while for the characters to not only grieve their losses, but also to learn how to continue living. It is a delightfully sad film just as much as it is a sweet one.
The selfish behavior of the adults, and their neglectful abuse in this movie can be tough to watch at times. We just want to yell at them to get their shit together! But, these things do happen, and we appreciate that the film showcases some of the harsh realities.
The film’s beginning is tragic and complicated, but the ending is touching and lovely. We love this movie! It is one we watched when we were children, so there is a big nostalgia factor for us but it is also simply put, just a good movie.
We highly recommend it! If you like movies that are complicated, tragic, healing and sweet then this is a great movie for you!
We give this movie…4 Lemon Drop martinis out of 5!
The Secret Garden Drinking Game
Take a sip anytime:
1. Anyone mentions India
2. Mary gets dressed
3. Anyone calls Mary "Contrary"
4. Mary is too serious
5. Mary expects someone to do something for her or acts like a brat
6. Mary explores or sees a new part of the manor
7. Mrs. Medlock scolds the kids
8. Mrs. Medlock looks disappointed
9. Mrs. Medlock is mean
10. Martha is a sweetheart
11. Martha says "Miss Mary"
12. Anyone says "Secret Garden" or "The Garden"
13. You see an animal on screen
14. Dickon is on a horse
15. Dickon says “Miss Mary”
16. Colin whines or screams
17. Colin mentions any of his ailments
18. Colin is a brat
19. Colin says he's going to die
There's a time lapse plant growth scene
What did you think?? Did you like the movie? Did you hate it!? Do you have suggestions for films we should consider?! Let us know here in the comments and always remember to be safe and drink responsibly!