The Secret Garden (1993)
Reviewed by Gordon Kearns
This review contains key plot elements (Spoilers)
A Messiah
Some time ago, while watching the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon I was drawn to the character of the young Jen Yu. Her appearance in the story precipitated a series of events that led directly to the redemption of the central characters Li Mu Bai and Lu Shu Lien. Mu Bai and Shu Lien, comrades in arms in many battles against the Giang Hu underground, had repressed their feelings of love for each other because of the dictates of tradition and propriety. The free-spirited Jen Yu shunned tradition, upsetting their world with the introduction of a new concept: that you should be true to your heart. At the story's end Mu Bai and Shu Lien finally accept the depth of their love. Jen Yu, then, represented the redemptive agent who made that acceptance possible. Later, I would notice other such free-spirited movie characters whose primary purpose also seemed to be the redemption of major characters in their stories. I thought I had a category going, and even gave it a title: "The Messiahs of Literature." An interesting phenomenon, but of no special significance that I could figure - so I tossed it aside as just another fascinating, but useless, observation.
However, after watching the 1993 version of The Secret Garden, my dormant fascination with literary messiahs has been jolted out of retirement. In this story Mary Lennox exemplifies the category with such simple, stunning clarity that it can no longer be considered merely a coincidentally occurring plot element, but needs to be recognized as a recurring theme of literary significance.
Mary Lennox is a ten year old girl who lives with her parents in India. Her father is away most of the time, and her mother has no use for her. Mary is left in the care of ayahs. She is waited on hand and foot, and all her wishes are catered to. She does nothing for herself - she is even dressed daily by her ayahs. She has no friends her age at all, so never has learned the give and take of playing with other children. So she has grown to the age of ten helpless, spoiled, lacking in social skills, unloved, and lonely ... and tough as nails. However, being left to her own devices so much has also given her an indomitable spirit ... and an unquenchable thirst for understanding the world around her.
Her life, as it is, is suddenly drastically altered. An earthquake leaves her orphaned, so she is sent to Yorkshire to live with her widowed uncle, Lord Craven, on his massive estate, Misselthwaite Manor. Lord Craven spends very little time there. The gothic manor has an eerie ominous atmosphere, and the dark nights are filled with the sounds of the winds coming off the moors ... and mysterious distant voices. Mary is instructed by Mrs. Medlock, the head housekeeper of the manor, that her movements are to be limited to her room and the outside grounds and gardens. But Mary does not take forced limitations easily, and even on her first night starts exploring the dark halls, rooms, and passages. Outside, her interest focuses on the locked "secret garden" that no one has entered in ten years. Gradually, she allows a few new "friends" into her private space: Martha, a maid assigned to bring Mary her meals, and Dickon, Martha's twelve year old brother, who roams the moors and makes friends with the plants and animals who populate the moors and estate gardens.
On one of her expeditions, she finds the key to the secret garden among her dead aunt's things; and so she enters the garden. With the help of Dickon she sets about bringing the garden back to life. Also, on another expedition through the manor's halls, she finds the hidden away Colin, Lord Craven's apparently crippled dying son, shunned by his father and fluttered over by Mrs. Medlock and the house staff, he is even more spoiled and self-centered than Mary was. After a battle of wills (in which Colin is no match for Mary's powerful character), she befriends Colin, and she and Dickon draw him into the garden project with them. The three young people form a bond as the garden thrives, and as Colin bit by bit gains in general health - and starts learning to walk.
By the end of the movie, Mary - no longer the cold lonely soul - has brought about the redemption of the garden and the redemption of Colin and his estranged father. As it turns out, they were the focus of the movie's story - not Mary. What then was Mary's place in the scheme of things? Why, she was the messiah who made it happen. In the movie, that fact is confirmed at the end in Lord Craven's touching dialog with her. "You brought us back to life, Mary," he tells her. And being a messiah is its own reason for existence. And the secret garden? Perhaps childhood, where tender loving care is needed if children are to flourish. Or perhaps Colin: a child tucked away in a back room without the love of his parent will dry up and die, as the garden almost did before Mary's arrival. Or life itself, including adults, where loving care is a universal need. At one point Mary tells Colin about the Indian myth where a god looks just like any other boy, but when you look into his mouth you can see the whole universe.
For me, I like to think the secret garden is Mary. She's the one who discovers its key after a persistent undaunted search. It would seem that the garden was what worked its charms on Colin and Lord Craven. But the charms of the garden were locked away before Mary came. So her coming to Misselthwaite became the turning point in their lives. In her last lines before and during the dialog with Lord Craven, she interchanges herself for the garden over and over. When Colin and his father are united, Mary says, "No one wants me." When Lord Craven asks her what's wrong, she says, "It wasn't wanted." "What wasn't wanted," he asks. "The garden," she answers. Through sheer determination and constancy, Mary had brought the garden, and herself, into beautiful spring bloom. So as I see it, she is the garden, and it was she who worked the magic on Colin, Lord Craven, and the other denizens of Misselthwaite Manor. Mary Lennox is one of my literary messiahs.
Of course, thanks to author Frances Hodgson Burnett for creating The Secret Garden way back in 1911. And Director Agnieszka Holland deserves the highest praises for her perceptive interpretation of Burnett's classic. The three children - Kate Maberly, who played Mary; Heydon Prowse, who played Colin; and Andrew Knott, who played Dickon - were absolutely astounding. Kate Maberly's portrayal of Mary takes its place as among the best performances in cinema history. Also, special recognition should go to Maggie Smith as the ironbound intimidating Mrs. Medlock, to John Lynch as the somber bereft distant Lord Craven, and to Laura Crossley's heartwarming portrayal of the bright sensitive humble Martha.
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