The Shell Seekers

This could have been an excellent film--and 90% of it is. But for some inexplicable reason, Hallmark decided they needed a "happier" movie and rewrote crucial segments. I won't give away the changes but if you loved the book, you'll be outraged. The new dialogue also sticks out like a sore thumb.

Penelope Keeling has just had a heart attack, or so her doctor says, but she cannot tolerate the sights and sounds of impending death that surround her at the hospital. So against his orders, she goes home. She looks over her garden, and determines to clear away the weeds there, when suddenly a memory of the past flashes before her: a vision of her mother Sophie and her playing against a beautiful seascape. Her father is in the foreground, capturing the scene on canvas, and it isn't unlike his painting on her parlor wall called "The Shell Seekers" that she keeps because it's a document of the days when she was most happy.

It's a mighty vision, because in it lies the heart of Penelope's gift--the joy of living that her dead mother was able to pass on to her, a joy she so wishes she knew how to convey to her children--and can't. And in her frustration, she embarks on a journey to recapture that happiness again.

In its soft, hushed way, "The Shell Seekers" is a testament to what great television can be. John Pielmeier opens before us the mystery and grandeur of Rosamund Pilcher's story about maternal loss and love, and Angela Lansbury reveals sides in the embodiment of Pilcher's creation that reach something primal inside of you and takes root in you for what seems might be forever. I don't think I'll forget the ending to this movie as long as I live. It jerked tears that I never thought I had; the last time my heart was caught in my throat this hard was in one of the great crying parties of all time "Imitation of Life." And where Juanita Moore's problem was obvious, Angela Lansbury's is less clear. Her past suffering was brought on by the surprises that war springs on unsuspecting people and the usual entanglements brought on by hostile relatives, but the sorrow about her grown children is much more mysterious like the deep, blue sea Penelope seems to be stretching her arms out to. Lansbury has never been this pensive in a role, although she had a lot of practice on "Murder, She Wrote." But nothing there ever had this kind of lingering poignancy. With Anna Cateret, Patricia Hodge, and Christopher Bowen as her children; Denis Quilley as Hodge's lover; Sophie Ward as his mermaid of a daughter; Mark Lewis Jones as the gardener with a tender secret of his own; and Sam Wanamaker as the man Pen let get away. If Cornwall is as beautiful as Waris Hussein is able to show us in this movie, I hope to visit it one day.

Just finished book around noon today, and just finished this TV movie few hours afterwards.

They had two hours to condense a lengthy novel. I think they did a decent job, strayed pretty far from the book, but decent nonetheless. I'm very disappointed they left out several characters, and reduced others to footnotes, but again only two hours.

I think what I appreciated most was they screenwriter/director gave us some dialogue which might (or might not) have been exactly what Rosamunde was thinking when she wrote the book. Their interpretation is what I enjoyed most.

Moving on to the 2006 version now.

This is a very slow paced film about a grandmother (Angela Lansbury) who spends all her time thinking about the past, and beating herself up for how selfish and greedy her children turned out. The writing is stilted and artificial, like little polished speeches rather than dialogue. It feels as if lifted from pop-psychology books. Nothing much actually happens except some soulful hugs and a lot of complaining.

There are scenes involving sea shells which are supposed to be cosmically significant. It reminds me of the kinds of films my friends made as teenagers full of Deep Inner Meaning.

The adult children are like the rude aristocratic brats lifted from an Agatha Christie novel. It has a non-believable too-happy ending.

I read the book, and saw the movie. The book always has more detail, but I love the movie. I've watched it over and over.