Roger Deakins’ photography captures the beauty and the awe of the house and the garden, making for a truly immersive viewing experience.

| Oct 4, 2024

Maybe it’s not worth complaining that there aren’t more films like The Secret Garden when the way it quietly excels is partially dependent on how modest its pleasures are in comparison to its louder peers.

| Nov 13, 2023

...though Solomon seems to assert that his films fundamentally consist of the physical images themselves, and not what those images might represent, he doesn’t abandon representational imagery completely...

| Jun 2, 2022

Visually, The Secret Garden is enchanting. Working in English for the first time, with Francis Coppola as her executive producer, Agnieszka Holland conjures up a fairy-tale world of images...

| Oct 9, 2019

The film has charm, without wandering into the realm of magic.

| Nov 28, 2017

The result is an instant classic -- rich, dense, resonant, powerful.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2013

While drawing superb performances from her young leads, Holland has masterfully contrasted the garden -- a place where melodic robins seem almost conversant -- with the dread of Misselthwaite.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013

The film retains the gothic atmosphere of the book and looks amazing, thanks to Roger Deakins's scintillating photography. Stealing the show is Maggie Smith as beastly housekeeper Mrs Medlock.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 1, 2013

That`s a more upscale marketing concept than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it still doesn't make the movie any good.

| Aug 1, 2013

The movie's dark themes, unhurried pace and talkiness make it something of a gamble for many children. But older children -- especially those who have been asking specific questions about death -- may find some nourishment in this garden.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

This enchanted tale vividly shows how love heals and nurtures barren souls, makes them flourish like abundant Edens.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013

Rather than a fresh breeze, it's the stale air of gilded calculation, the uncomfortable feeling that things are excessively "just so," that overhangs much that is genuinely appealing about this film.

| Aug 1, 2013

Though it can get laborious, and produces the odd unintended chuckle, The Secret Garden is charming and sometimes chillingly authentic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 1, 2013

Any kids' movie that aims for something richer than the Saturday-matinee escapism of smiling whales and preschool ninjas -- that actually captures some of the mystery of childhood -- ought to be embraced. whatever its peculiarities.

| Aug 1, 2013

It's as if the moviemakers were trying to cook up a New Age Yorkshire pudding, without meat drippings -- what's missing is Burnett's robust optimism and animistic energy.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2013

What magic there is comes from the odd, ritual behaviour of the children in a nice demonstration of the life-enhancing miracle of nature.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

This lavish treatment originated from Coppola's Zoetrope studio and follows their several successful films made for family audiences.

| Aug 1, 2013

An intelligently conceived and finely crafted picture with a G rating, a tag normally shunned by ambitious filmmakers because of its association with kiddie cartoons and squeaky-clean dullness.

| Aug 1, 2013

Screenwriter Caroline Thompson and director Agnieszka Holland have turned Frances Hodgson Burnett's rather gothic 1911 children's book into an evocative, beautifully realized picture.

| Aug 1, 2013

The film is gorgeous to look at, from its period accouterments to its wanderings in explored space (the house is full of secret passageways) to its use of color.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 1, 2013