A young girl in the 1940's has to go and live with a distant uncle she doesn't know and she finds a secret garden and some friends.
This starts of very bleak.
The only comparison I can think of for this level of isolation, loneliness and alienation is "28 Days Later."
The film carries on like this for a while and we get to know the unhappy lead character rather well.
As little girls in the 1940's, stuck in dusty manors in the middle of the moors don't really get up to much the film feels very, very slow and voyeuristic at times.
You get shots of fingers brushing leaves, shoes stamping in puddles, misty moorland, overcast skies, etc.
Then the movie has to put its foot down to get the actual story underway.
All that time defining this disturbed, distant little girl is erased in an instant when she suddenly realises that her mum did love her and she transforms into Pollyanna overnight.
She then runs around the estate marking off her check list of people to fix.
After an hour and a quarter of gloom and depression the last fifteen minutes are just too cloying.
It is like being punched in the throat by a fist made of sweetener.
The young actors are very good. Colin Firth, Julie Walters and Isis Davis are only there for set dressing. The garden is vibrant and bright but not really a garden and no distinction is made between fantasy and reality so you never really get a handle on what it is.
This is a short film that feels long and leaves you struggling to remember what you just watched.
