Christmas before last our daughter gave her mother and I a trial subscription to Netflix. We liked it so much we continued our subscription which allows us to rent two movies at a time. We get about two movies each week and we try to get one movie I like and one my wife likes. This week my choice was the Blu-ray copy of "A Bridge Too Far" a World War II movie about the failed "Market Garden" plan by the Allies to capture a bridge across the Rhine River and strike into the heart of Nazi German and end the war by Christmas. A very good movie on blu-ray but the movie I want to write about is "Anne of Green Gables" a CBS miniseries from 1986 my wife picked. The miniseries is based upon the book by Canadian writer L.M Montgomery and is based upon her experience in growing up in rural Prince Edward Island, Canada in the late half of the 1800's. I was expecting a "chick flick" but was moved by the movie. The main charcter, Anne ("with an e")Shirley, reminds me a lot of some one I know....they might be "kindred spirits"
The IMDB gives the following synopsis of the movie:
At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert( Richard Farnsworth) and his sister Marilla(Colleen Dewhurst) decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley. Anne's a dreamer with an unusual point of view, far removed from Marilla's pragmatic ways, and it's only on trial that Marilla agrees to keep Anne...if Anne can keep out of trouble, only Anne has a positive genius for it. As Anne falls into a series of scrapes (and off a roof), makes a bosom friend, searches (and finds) several kindred spirits, Matthew and Marilla discover that their lives have become a great deal richer, now that Anne is at Green Gables.
I started off watching because I like Colleen Dewhurst, she was in some of John Wayne's last movies, and Richard Farnsworth who was a stuntman form Hollywood's Golden Era. However, the character Anne Shirley captivated me. I now know why the series of "Anne of Green Gables" books were a favorite of someone I know and why she still has the books on a bookshelf in her old room.
I would highly recommend the book and movie to mothers and fathers with young daughters. It's a fine antidote to the junk the mass media is targeting to our children.It teaches important values and it demonstrates that young girls can aspire to be more than the next Hanna Montana! They just need to find their "kindred spirits."
