O Jardim dos Esquecidos

An earlier review here, one of the few positive reviews of this movie on this site, had one thing wrong, saying that those who read the book would appreciate the movie, and vice-versa. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. Having not read the book, I first saw this movie unjaded, and so was able to appreciate it as the sad and tragic story that it is.

The sudden death of a loving husband and father (it appears he may be a little too loving toward the oldest daughter, but the movie doesn't expand on that) leaves the family in despair, so the mother takes the children and herself to her filthy-rich parents' mansion, hoping to inherit the estate from her dying father. Just one little thing: she was long-ago disinherited because she entered into a forbidden marriage, and her father will not grant her an inheritance if he knows the marriage resulted in children, so she and her mother, "The "Grandmother", keep the children hidden in an attic as they await the old man's death, and she tries to win back his approval. The Grandmother is like a cruel warden, treating the children, a teenage boy and girl, and two young twins, boy and girl, like convicted criminals, only worse. The waiting goes on and on, during which the mother is consumed by greed, and emerges as the real villain.

Some readers of the book are indignant that the story was cleaned up for the movie, but that was necessary to make it more watchable to a wider audience. It is still a great and haunting story, reminiscent of the black and white horror flicks of the 1960's ("Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", "Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte", etc.). Audiences of the 1980's were not so jaded as today's, and were not ready for incest, especially among sympathetic characters.

Maybe the acting was not first-rate, and some elements, like the climactic ending, a bit campy, but the compelling storyline easily compensates for it, so long as you don't dwell on the few shortcomings, and can't see the forest for the trees.

And the movie has one thing the book hasn't: a memorably haunting, chilling musical score, a perfect compliment to an equally haunting, chilling story.

"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?

As a young child I remember my mother watching this movie and having the titles in book form. V.C. Andrews book, when I read it myself wasn't that bad, actually it was very good! Sadly as in most cases the movie just wasn't as good as the book.

The story revolves around a family who at one time was very happy indeed. However as this movie shows they hit hard times. I won't say how because that would give away major plot points for you. After these unhappy turn of events they, I mean the four children and their mother, all have to return in poverty and destitution to their grandmother's home for help. The mother has a plan to win back her father's love to inherit a fortune the likes the kids had never dreamed. When the group enters the grounds of the ornate mansion we are treated to the main villain of the movie....Grandmother, and her bodyguard/servant John The Butler. Needless to say Grandmother is less than thrilled to see her daughter after umpteen years and bringing four unwanted "Spawn of the Devil" with her. This, sadly is what she refers to them as.

Grandmother, as she is called is played wonderfully by Louise Fletcher. Granted I'm a fan of Kristy Swanson, but this is a movie made before she really got good roles such as Buffy. However this movie has only Mrs. Fletcher to lean back upon as the ONLY person who really CAN act.

Grandmother makes life hell for the children, and punishes the mother for leaving with her husband years earlier. Eventually Mother as she is referred to tells the children of an attic above their room. For months they use this place to escape the harsh reality around them. As time continues pressing on they realize Mother doesn't love them as much as they had originally thought, and decide its time once and for all to make a break for it.

The movie is very depressing, and I think this is what the film is supposed to do. I believe the director wanted you to feel as they did, hopeless and trapped in that attic as the kids were. For that I give it a 5/10, because in some areas it does succeed, and Mrs. Fletcher's acting really does get you angry at her character. Otherwise I count off for bad-acting, scenes which made no sense at times, and plot points which were utterly useless (the list of rules which was never expounded upon, certain other key moments as well) if you watch you'll understand what I mean. Also the time frame for which these events took place also seem out of order, which if I remember correctly were very detailed in the book.

To me its good for a one time watch but there are better movies which succeed at doing what this one tries to do. I re-watched it the other day and remembered it being very good when I was younger. However now it seems more like a straight-to-video diatribe which I could've easily bypassed completely.

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.

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...