The Secret Garden (2020)

Things get quite Gothic in the film’s final stretch, with genre add-ons that “Garden” purists may also find distasteful. The extra melodrama can feel unnecessary. However, it leads to moments of life-restoring beauty (core theme here again) and love.

Though Munden attempts to overload our senses with rich visuals, The Secret Garden does end up feeling kind of slight, like the film rushed through the SparkNotes version of the story.

But to the generation encountering it for the first time, its pleasures should be unencumbered. While the emphasis on beguiling visuals slightly overshadows the performances, the cast is uniformly solid, and Secret Garden completists will appreciate the connection of Firth playing the father of the character he played in the 1987 TV movie.

In a year defined by surprise, the predictability of The Secret Garden — a new film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved 1911 novel — proves more charming than tedious.

The Secret Garden is a mid-tier adaptation, though one with heart and soul.