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By JOE BUTKIEWICZ; Times Leader Staff Writer
Friday, August 20, 1993     Page: 3B QUICK WORDS: THE SECRET GARDEN

Already made into a big screen movie, a TV movie and a stage play, there
would seem to be hardly enough secret left in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The
Secret Garden” to justify another movie.
   
Yet here it is, a new version of “The Secret Garden,” directed with care by
Agnieszka Holland (“Europa, Europa”) and mounted with elegance by executive
producer Francis Ford Coppola.
    Their film is both lovely and potent.
   
“The Secret Garden” is a children’s story about death, dying and depression
that still manages a G rating. (The gloomy beginning of the story may be too
intense only for the youngest or most impressionable children.)
   
The movie begins in Colonial India, where young Mary Lennox is pampered by
servants but ignored by her British parents. After a sudden earthquake, she’s
orphaned and shipped back to the lonely moors of England and the imposing
castle/estate of her guardian uncle.
   
However, Lord Craven (John Lynch) is burdened by a tragedy of his own —
the death of his wife — and he is often away, in mourning, his estate and
family in decline.
   
Left in the care of Mrs. Medlock (Maggie Smith), a housekeeper almost as
imposing as the castle, Mary’s new home is hell. The castle itself seems to be
screaming.
   
Yet Mary’s own buried soul surfaces, prodded by a cheerful servant named
Martha (Laura Crossley) and her admiring brother Dickon (Andrew Knott). These
new friends and her own curiosity lead Mary to a secret garden, where life
hasn’t abandoned the estate.
   
This renewal by nature is made real by Holland, who cast her film well.
Maberly is convincing as a humorless child in need of a spanking and later,
the glowing picture of joy. Maggie Smith, always wonderful is no less as the
taskmaster Medlock. And as the brooding Colin, Heydon Prowse has one of the
funniest moments of the film. “I am not sour,” he insists, with the most sour
of grimaces.
   
“The Secret Garden” is so measured and evenly paced, some audiences may be
bored. But I thought the movie was beautiful and gratifying, a movie about
personal strength that never stoops to treacle or quick characterizations.