Flores en el ático

Incalculable amounts of money? Or doting motherhood? The fundamental ultimatum for any recent widower, lumbered with four beautifully blonde children, who seeks the extensive inheritance of their terminally ill yet abundantly wealthy father. "We will have more money than you could possibly dream of", she reassures her grieving offspring after the abrupt death of their father. Leading them to her idyllic childhood abode, as if a group of sheep lining up for slaughter. Their devout religious grandmother awaiting in the lavished corridors of the beguiling manor, guiding them to their designated imprisonment. "Your mother has come home after seventeen years to repent for her sins and for her crime", she exclaims, detailing the "unholy" marriage between their mother and father, whom is actually her uncle. And with the grandmother's last words, "and you, the children, are the Devil's spawn!", she swiftly locks the children in the attic. Patiently waiting for their mother's return, abiding by their grandmother's strict punishable rules, they soon begin to realise that she gradually abandons them for unlimited wealth and must discover a means of escape.

Bloom's adaptation of Andrews' popular novel of the same name illicitly exudes gothic aesthetics and a haunting score that are regrettably unable to masquerade the butchering of its source material. Originally a suspense thriller infamous for its explicit incestuous relationships and child abuse, Bloom, whom largely blamed producers and studio interference for cutting the suggestive elements (albeit retaining insinuations), removed the vast majority of metaphorical endeavours to settle for a straightforward flat narrative that lacked the required motivation from its characters. The sanctimonious virtuosity of the radically religious and their inner hyperbolic inhumanity.

Fletcher, whom consistently portrays a conniving antagonist with superb efficiency, is unforgivably under-utilised. Locking the children away, starving them, and occasionally checking up on them before smacking their life force or cutting their hair. The grandmother was the catalyst for the evil within the manor, yet Bloom randomly decided to shift the villainous focus to the mother, whom was admittedly a background presence in the novel. She still remains lurking in the corridors, rarely making an appearance to convey the children's eventual abandonment, but consequently the altered third act rarely made an impact due to her narrative absence. Her exaggerated inhumanity perpetuating the greed for wealth and luxury was, to say the least, less characterised than the dilapidated interior of the attic itself.

The children, with the two oldest notably played by an appropriately aged Swanson and the far too old Stuart Adams (looked like he could be married to the mother!), held much of the story together with some genuine onscreen chemistry. The acting ranged from maturing cheddar cheese to blatant mediocrity, however their relational strengths were in full bloom. Unfortunately, the unsubstantial plot progressed at a glacial pace, forcing their shenanigans to be nothing more than menial distractions. When the most "thrilling" scene revolves around crafting paper flowers to decorate the attic, you just know something is missing.

That's the inherent problem with Bloom's adaptation. It's missing the vital controversial components that shaped the novel's legacy. Whilst this adaptation is shrouded in a clumsy watchability factor, due to it being a viable product of its time, it confusingly avoids watering its incestuous seeds and therefore prevents its thrilling story from growing. Forgettable. Those cookies sure looked delicious though...

While not up to the book's par, the film version of Flowers in the Attic was well-written, and well acted out. The actors portrayed their characters brilliantly, and the most obviously missing scene is understandable in that it's probably illegal or at least wrong to depict in the US.

When watching this movie, you sympathize with the locked up, neglected and abused children, hating those torturing them so. It makes you feel, and has you wondering what you might do in a similar situation. Realistic as it is, a lot of people, including me, were conviced it was based on a true story. After seeing Flowers in the Attic, many viewers were probably thankful for their relatively normal families and lives.

Want to know the rest of the story? Read the other books. Flowers in the attic was the first in a series which includes 3 sequels (what happened after the Cathy, Chris and Carrie left, and how did all this affect the next generation of Foxworths?), and a prequel (why was the Grandmother so crazy?). The movie ending was nowhere near as interesting as the 2nd book in the series.

The movie was good, but the books were even better. They told the whole story and thus had more substance.

"Flowers" is a film based on the cult novel by VC Andrews. There are secrets Chris (Jeb Stuart Adams) and Cathy (Kristy Swanson) never knew about their parents. After their father dies, the teenage siblings, along with their younger brother and sister, are sent to live with their cruel grandmother, Olivia (Louise Fletcher). Olivia is disgusted by the children -- she knows their mother (Victoria Tennant) and father were actually cousins -- and locks the brood in the attic. The kids then try to keep their spirits high in spite of their bleak situation.

Now this film was re-shot and re-edited without the directors approval. The producers harmed the narrative of the story because the test audience was appalled by the incest theme-however that is what drove the book sales and made it almost mandatory reading for the JR High Set.

Now the original version did "Stick close" to the source material. However when they tested the the film to girls around 13 they hated the scenes with incest themes. THE FILM SHOULD OF BEEN FILMED AS A R RATED FILM. Well that is understandable but the book had already been around for over 5 years and the girls that first read the book were now old enough to see an R RATED FILM.

For years people have wanted to see the original directors cut. What is not known is who owns the film now? New World Cinema? MGM? Now if they own the film do they own the outtakes? Most importantly if a company wants to fund the restoration of the directors cut can they? Is the footage still around?

This movie has one of the strangest, classic climactic lines of any movie I've seen, with the old, dependable, wrap everything up in 15 seconds endings.

I haven't read the book this is based on, but have to ask why readers find the theme of incest more appropriate in print than in a movie. The plot revolves around a seemingly perfect family, two parents, four children (all of them unrealistically beautiful)and their happy life - until the father dies. Instantly, they are destitute and all of their furniture is respossessed. Why is it that every B movie follows the theme of instant poverty when someone dies? Apparantly, concepts like having life insurance, owning furniture, etc, don't apply in filmland. Whenever tragedy strikes in a film, we discover that every house is double-mortgaged to the hilt. Maybe this is a subtle comment on American consumerism. Mother's only recourse after this turn of events is to take her children back to her relatives she has alienated by marrying her own uncle. She actually encourages her children to sleep in the same bed, as if "normalizing" her own act of incest by perpetuating it in her children who don't know any better. Naturally, the relatives are evil and twisted, and lock the children in the attic, and we discover that mother is definitely from the same family stock. There are too many reviews that give a blow by blow description of the plot for me to repeat them, but my main observation is that this is a typical copout "provocative" movie, with a sicker-than-usual theme; it "alludes" to incest, without actually confronting it, which causes the story to fall between the cracks in a bad way. It becomes irrelevant to the story, and there isn't much of a story here to begin with. Either the incest theme should have been eliminated entirely, or dealt with frankly. Instead, we are shown scenes of brother washing his sister's back in the tub, undressing in front of each other, etc. Sex is never shown, though it is left up to our imaginations whether they are actually in a sexual relationship or just never taught that brothers and sisters don't undress in front of each other. The only thing that works is the way the characters don't know that what they are doing is wrong, in fact are innocent to the implications. The movie tries to have its cake and eat it too, i.e. imply incest and then chicken out, but gives us insulting implied scenes as if we are being nudged in the ribs by a pervert in the local porn shop, only not as subtle. Implying incest without confronting it in an honest way makes us feel as if we are being manipulated into having perverted fantasies about these characters ourselves, which is the most disgusting aspect of this film, and is my biggest problem with it. An intelligent script could have dealt with incest in a psychological way, as we understand these characters' relations with each other, and eliminated all the sudsy bath sequences (which true pervs will be dissappointed in, as they don't actually show anything) that makes us feel like we are peeking in someone's bathroom window.

An intelligent script would also deal with the idea of family betrayal (by the mother) in an intelligent way; but this isn't an intelligent script. It relies entirely on atmosphere and images of betrayal, which don't work or are extremely heavy-handed. This is a very depressing movie about depressing ideas, depressingly presented. Only the final line "Eat the cookie, mother!" gives it a surreal hilarity for a moment.

The saddest part of this movie is that the actors are all very good; but they are completely wasted, because the script and direction isn't there to support them. Four out of ten stars.

My mom had been wanting me to watch this movie ever since she had heard that I had never seen it. It seemed interesting enough and one day when it came on TV I recorded it and decided to watch it later that night. Now, maybe I was just not expecting much from it, but I absolutely loved it the first time I watched it. Then, I realized it was based on a book.

Not long ago I finished the book, and when I look back this movie kind of did not do it justice at all. There was tons of material that was left out and though I like the ending in the movie better than the ending in the book, I thought the book was much more mystifying and eerie. The thing about the movie though is it's entertaining enough on it's own to where I still really enjoy it and the characters are well adapted and played out by the actors and actresses. The movie maintains some eeriness and has a nice, creepy atmosphere, but now I just wish that there was so much more they would've done with the movie.

I guess since I'm not a huge fan of the book, it doesn't really upset me that the movie fails to do it justice, but I really do wish there would be another movie adaptation where it's rated R and they include tons of more important material. In any matter, Flowers in the Attic is enjoyable, entertaining and well executed. It's nothing like the book, so don't expect it to be if you haven't seen it and think you might like to.