V.C. Andrews' Heaven

I really wanted to like these movies. I love the books and was excited for them to be made into movies. But come on. A huge part of the story is that Heaven has black hair. The second one is literally called Dark Angel because of her hair. She looks just like her mom except she had black hair, Casteel hair.

Leigh had silverly blond hair which was another important point in the series. They cast a red head for the dark haired character and a dark haired actress for the one with blond hair.

Farthinggale Manor was another disappointment. That house doesn't even come close to what it was supposed to be.

Being Gen-x I did like Jason Priestley as Tony Tatterton but everything else was a pitiful attempt that ignored the source material.

This was horrific and a really shameful portrayal of Andrew's stunning writing. I've read this book at different decades of my life and I must say I've enjoyed the series more as I've aged. Furthermore, I have taught English for 20 years and am also an avid reader of all narratives. So my level of expertise doesn't limit me to Virginia Andrew's writing.

So many poignant details that hold so much importance throughout the series were changed and it baffles me to as of why? The hair colours? The level of poverty? The occupations and historical backgrounds? The integral dialogue and narrative that holds deep relevance to the series as a whole!?!?! The TV series writers who chose these creative changes had little to no understanding of the narrative presented and the metaphorical purpose of these choices.

It's a shame.

I adore this series. My favourite of Andrew's. This TV series, in this day and age, had so much potential when it had such an intricate and visually passionate narrative to work with. It failed beyond belief!!!

There are a lot of issues with this adaption of a fantastic book. The acting is ok but the actress playing heaven is somewhat stagnant and lacks emotional range.

The other issue is the actresses chosen to play Leigh, heaven and fanny, whilst lovely, are not attractive enough to play the characters they are supposed to be playing. Not that these women are in any way unattractive, but heaven and Leigh are said to be absolutely stunning in addition to Leigh being blonde like Jillian and heaven is certainly not a redhead.

The character of kitty Denison was also very disappointing to me. She is described as red headed, voluptuous and callous in the books, not a blonde sweet as pie stick figure that occasionally looks daggers rather than the constant violent beatings in the book.

The other issue I had is the sets. Farthingale manor is nowhere near as grand as described in the books, and the cabin the casteel family live in is far too modern, large, filled with furniture and well maintained rather than the dingy shack in the book that makes heaven's story that much more incredible.

So much was left out of the movie from the books that the whole mood is gone and this feels more like a bold and the beautiful episode at times. We also don't see enough of heaven's introduction to her new wealthy life.

Now onto the positives.

Jason priestly was a great tony, and Jillian was well acted. Fanny and heaven were too stiff and underwhelming for me but they had an alright delivery. For a stand alone movie it's ok, but as a tribute to the book it was upsetting and not recognizable apart from the characters names.

I enjoyed "Flowers in the attic" series, even though it was twisted, it made sense. This one I just had a hard time keeping up with and the characters were just over the top dramatic - it seems a little spoofy! Lol.

So many things wrong with these movies... i was basically thinking, why did they bother making them if they didn't want to stick to the same storey line. The books were fantastic and they have made such a mess. The basic things that were important to the storey line were the colour of the characters hair, it may seem like it wasn't important but if you are a fan of the books you will know why. Heaven was brunette, her mother Angel was Blonde, the next book is called dark Angel because heaven looked like Angel but dark. Her step mother Sarah was a Red Hed as well as all her children except Fanny, she always wanted Luke's dark hair boy so he would love her, but in the movie Tom was dark hair. Fanny should have been younger and cheeky, very promiscous and beautiful. Kitty should have been a Vuluptous Red Head. Leigh should have been a young beautiful blonde. So many issues with all these Characters that didn't suit the descriptions.

The other issue is the sets, they just seemed so wrong, the cabin should have been shabby and poor, they made it seem modern and new. The set's were made to look like they were all Modern, but this should have been in the 60's in poor outback West Virginia. The manor Farthy was not luxurious enough.

They missed so much crucial plot in the first movie, where heaven and her siblings were left alone for months and they had no food left, they had to steal and find food themselves. They missed out on so much juicy details, just really poor and lazy, the acting wasn't great either. Sorry but why did they bother, did the writers even read the books?