Netflix dropped Anne with an E, a gritty variation on Anne of Green Gables (which aired in Canada in March of this year) on May 12th. It caused a lot of stir, and I asked Cleolinda Jones (you may know her from Tumblr, or from her blog) to join me in a discussion on what we thought worked, what did not, and what was just kind of random.
Spoilers abound, and yeah, there are some significant detours from the books, so be warned. These spoilers are not over 100 years old.
RHG: Well, that happened a lot.
CJ: Everything happened… so much.
RHG: There were a lot of things I liked, a few things I am kind of like, “Well, that was worth trying, I guess” and a few things that I did not like at all.
I am also still in mourning for Jonathan Crombie, OG Gilbert from the 1985 Kevin Sullivan version, so this Gilbert was never gonna live up. He was fine, but you can’t compete with a dead guy. Sorry bro.
CJ: You know what? I actually liked New Gilbert, although I’m not sure why they chose to give him and Anne such a different dynamic. Like I told you before I started watching, these are the books I read every summer when I was a kid. I’m not married to the Sullivan series per se, although I liked it.
A couple episodes in, I started putting my reactions into three groups:
- “I don’t like this, but I can’t argue that it’s a valid artistic choice.”
- “I don’t like this, and I think it’s an actual misstep.”
- “Maybe I’m just being too hard on this.”
With sometimes a side of “Okay, I actually liked that part.”
RHG: I liked the exploration of the reality of Anne’s situation. We often ignore the fact that she ends up at Green Gables because they want to acquire a free farm hand, and the child welfare system of the Maritime provinces in the 19th century was perhaps…not very well regulated? So Anne’s trauma and abandonment issues I think were worth exploring.
And Amybeth Mcnulty was REALLY good at levels of her chattering that went from“I’m talking just to hear myself talk,” “I’m talking because someone is finally listening,” and “I’m expressing panic and trying to talk my way out of a mess that’s NOT EVEN MY FAULT.” I really liked her portrayal.
CJ: You know, I went back and reread the first book after I watched the series – I did the show the favor of not reading it first, at least – and I do think the book plays Anne’s initial “you don’t want me” reaction a bit callously–for laughs. I can’t argue that it’s reasonable to look at Anne’s personality and behavior through the lens of more realistic levels of trauma. I found it really, really upsetting, but complaining about that approach sounds callous.
What I ended up realizing was that this was why I found it so upsetting–not because it wasn’t realistic or valid, but because so many of us grew up with this character and knew her as someone cheerful and resilient, the kind of person we would hope to be in these situations, and we looked to her as a role model for how to be when things got tough for us. This version of Anne is more like what it’s actually like for us. It’s Real Life Anne, and not only are we watching a character we love get brutalized, we’re feeling adrift as viewers empathizing with her: who’s going to get us out of this?
RHG: And the answer to that is the same: Anne, with the help of the people she meets along the way. Matthew and Marilla (who comes around- slowly- even more slowly that book!Marilla) and Rachel Lynde (I loved the friendship between Rachel and Marilla in this version) and Diana and Jerry, who actually gets to be a person here. Once Anne is given a stable environment, there’s the Anne we knew, buuuuuuut with some more realistic quirks.
I admit, I never thought about how Anne Shirley would react to getting her period, but yes, the answer is “Over-dramatically.” (Though I have some questions about how much blood was on her sheets.)
CJ: That’s one of the additions I actually liked! I was kind of stressed by the very high key of the first couple of episodes, but then Anne’s shrieking about how menstruation is A WAKING NIGHTMARE and I’m like I feel u Anne.
It’s funny, because you say “a stable environment” and I feel like you could have just as well have said “material actually from the book.” The invented flashbacks were where I felt they made some missteps, mostly in terms of tone or extremity. In the book, Anne claims that her previous foster parents/employers “meant well, I’m sure.” And that could easily be someone wanting to hide the abuse she suffered, I know. She’s not necessarily reliable in that moment.
But it’s really jarring to compare that to how completely awful the flashbacks are. The first one, where Mrs. Hammond is demanding eight different things of Anne at once–I thought, you know, maybe that’s Anne’s subjective experience remembering that, it feels like it happened that way to her, good job.
Like there’s a level of modulation that was missing within a valid interpretation.
RHG: There was a moment there (The “all men have a mouse in their pocket” bit) where I was afraid that they were going to reveal Anne as having been sexually abused too, which would have been about twelve bridges too far. Thank god they did not.
There’s a stretch in the first episode where they’re word for word from the book and the Kevin Sullivan version (which I last saw a few years ago, but I’ve seen enough times that it’s worn grooves into my brain, I have so many clear memories of it), and I was going, “Okay, but why are were here, though?” So I appreciate the effort to make it different.
A shot for shot remake isn’t needed (like… ever…) and I think the goal here was to not even attempt to replace the version that so many people grew up with (unlike the terrible version from last year with Martin Sheen as Matthew. Matthew doesn’t like talking to people, and Sheen is a great actor but he physically cannot shut up. I love him, but Matthew he is NOT).
So in many cases, I appreciate the artistic effort, and there were a few additions I adored. Like Miss Barry and her Boston marriage.
CJ: Let me take those points out of order:
What. Martin Sheen what. What are you talking about. What the fuck. What? What.
I hated the “pet mouse” subplot. I hated it so much. I hated that the series kept finding reasons for Anne to be misunderstood and hated by the other students and the town. In the book, she’s actually adopted pretty easily by the other kids, albeit with rivalries and spats here and there. And maybe that’s unrealistic. But it’s one of the reasons the books are so beloved–that appeal, that wish fulfillment, of managing to be yourself and still fit in and be (mostly) accepted.
The one saving grace of the Pet Mouse Subplot was the moment when Marilla was indignant that Anne had embarrassed them with sex talk… and Matthew was indignant that Anne had been exposed to it. Just that moment of turning the blame on its head. Because otherwise, I was not fond of “let’s shun Anne and call her a trollop because she’s a preteen and thinks holding hands makes babies.”
All the material I recognized from the book was great, honestly! I love the new Matthew and Marilla and Rachel! I wasn’t even expecting to, but I genuinely did!
I LOVE MISS BARRY AND HER GRIEF FOR HER LONGTIME COMPANION (I mean I don’t love her grief, I’m sad, but) AND HER GIVING ROMANCE ADVICE TO ANNE FROM THAT POSITION AND THE SIMPLIFICATION OF INTRODUCING HER THROUGH THE MINNIE MAY ILLNESS. Yes. I approve of these things. This is the kind of thing worth adding.
RHG: The Minnie May section was always my favorite bit (of many favorite bits), so I was happy that was honored properly. And the relationship between Anne and Miss Barry has always been delightful. (I have often wondered precisely where Miss Barry got her money. This doesn’t answer it, really, but it’s still something I wonder.)
I found that some of the dialogue was a bit too modern sounding (Gilbert and his “I’m not your pal!” was almost Ocean’s Eleven-ish. “Don’t call me pal, friend!”), but whatever. And were I objective, I’m sure I would be fine with Gilbert himself (though the “I’m gonna go work on the docks because I’m an orphan now” thing was… strange). I did like Anne awkwardly trying to offer him comfort by pointing that she was QUITE an old hand at being an orphan, and if he had any questions…. I did like their dynamic.
CJ: Oh, it was worse than that. “I’m not your bud!” “Sure, bud.” Dude! Bro! Buuuuuddy.
I don’t quite get why they changed their dynamic that way–Gilbert’s father was ill in the book, but didn’t die, and the Blythes didn’t seem to be in any particular financial straits. Not sure why “dock work” was clearly the answer, either, except to put Gilbert squarely in town to run into Anne. But yeah, I suspect it was to set up Anne trying to bond with him on the shared orphan experience and it going awry, to give them something to fight about that wasn’t “Gilbert is arrogant and Anne refuses to talk to him ever again and this just continues in their heads to the mystification of everyone else for like four solid years.”
Speaking of The Shared Orphan Experience, which sounds like maybe a really gloomy chamber-music garage band, I noticed that this version references Jane Eyre A LOT. And I didn’t see any of that in the book. It reminds me of the way that Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightley, which I adore) took on what people called a more Brontëan tone, more windswept cliffs and such; several sweeping vistas and musical interludes on this show reminded me of Dario Marianelli’s work on both the P&P soundtrack and–in fact–Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre a few years ago.
And Jane Eyre, of course, begins with Jane’s famously horrible childhood sufferings. I feel like the series was trying to really orient itself around that gritty-yet-melodramatic vibe, sort of as its guiding light for how they wanted to retell the story. And the thing is, I love both those movies.
But that tone was just not working for me here. It might easily work for other viewers, so I won’t say it’s objectively a mistake. I saw people on Twitter saying, “I loved this series and so did my daughter.” I saw other people saying, “I love these books and I hate what they did with the show.” Again, I’m not saying the tonal shift is a mistake–I’m saying it’s an explanation for why some viewers have really, really disliked the series, viewers who grew up with the sunny, cozy atmosphere of the books, and why it ultimately just doesn’t work for me, despite the parts I liked.
That, and the point when the plot just goes off the rails.
RHG: See, this is why I knew I wanted to talk with you about this whole thing. You catch literary allusions like no one else.
How boring would entertainment be if everyone liked everything?
Yes, there are rails, and we’re chugging along, and chugging along, and then…
Like? What? Why? WHY.
That’s the point, around episode 7, where things swerve into, “What if we soap opera now? WHAT IF.”
And I did not like it at ALL.
CJ: I don’t catch everything, but you gotta get up real early in the morning to get a Jane Eyre reference past me. Like, the episode title about “A Tightly Knotted String” is from Jane Eyre. (In fact, all the titles might be.) Anne quotes from it by name more than once. Miss Barry is reading the book. They’re really trying to flag us down with it, I think, as their calling card of intention.
But that’s the thing: the books gently make fun of that kind of melodrama! Every time Anne tries to be dramatic, it bites her in the ass! She has some fun flight of fancy, probably accompanied by a catastrophe of her own well-intentioned making, and we appreciate that imagination is fun but sometimes you gotta keep your feet on the ground.
Meanwhile, the show is like, “What if… COINCIDENTAL STREET-ROBBER BOARDERS?!?!?! AND ANNE WILL HAVE A CRUSH ON ONE.”
I have no idea where the hell they’re going with this! I’m sure that’s the effect they want! But I do not want! Like, what, Jerry the farmhand (WHO THEY ROBBED) would recognize the new boarders, are they going to skulk around threatening him in the barn while flirting with Anne and stealing the silver? I DO NOT WANT.
RHG: DO NOT WANT.
Ultimately I think this is a flawed adaptation with some really great performances (Geraldine Page as Marilla in particular) and some really great moments, and other moments that just made me go, “Ugh, how about no?” It won’t replace the Kevin Sullivan (although it would be nice, Powers that Be, to have that available on streaming!) and it will not replace the books. It exists on its own, for better or for worse.
CJ: Yeah, and I would even say that the flaws are specifically in the story choices. It’s beautiful, it’s well-cast and well-acted, it has lovely opening credits, the original material from the book is played well, and several additions are also very good.
But there are some changes that I am not sure objectively work, and there are several things that I think will really, really turn off devoted fans of the books (or the Sullivan series, for that matter).
And I keep pointing out that discrepancy because I feel like Anne with an E is a very, very “your mileage may vary” kind of experience. I’m not even sure I can give it a specific grade or score.
I can just say, you’ll either like it or you won’t, and I can understand either reaction.
What about you? Have you watched Anne With an E? What’s your take on this new adaptation?
Important Note from Sarah: While we hid some of the spoilers in the discussion above, we can’t discuss the program and our reaction to it in the comments without spoilers, because the things that happen are the things we are reacting to.
So if you do not want to read spoilers, much as it pains me to say this, I’d suggest skipping this particular comment thread. And if you are posting a spoiler, if you would acknowledge it in all caps (“SPOILER ALERT!”), I would be very grateful. Striking the balance is difficult!
I now want/don’t want a gritty, modernised take on Pippi Longstocking
I’m currently on episode 4 and I am loving it! I was raised on Anne. Mainly the mini series, but had read Anne of Green Gables as a young girl. I decided to read the whole book series when I graduated high school. I’ve been looking forward to the new series for quite some time. It is different, but all the familiar feels are there for me. I love seeing things how they might have been for “real Anne”. There are some things that didn’t sit well with me, but overall I’ve been pleased. Several tears have been shed already. Marilla has stolen the show. I’m not sure of the future of the mini series, but I’d love to see it continue.
As someone who read Anne of Green Gables for the first time just a few months ago (and never having seen the miniseries), the inherent darkness of Anne’s beginning actually shocked me.
I had a moment 30 pages or so in, where I was like, “THIS is the heartwarming tale everybody loves? She was adopted because they wanted a boy to work their land and got her by mistake. And her early childhood was as a nursemaid shuffled between family members and family friends! This is…bleak.”
I grew to love Anne, but I couldn’t help but view the cheerfulness of the story with suspicion, like Anne decided to be cheerful and see everything with a sense of wonder because she literally had nothing else.
I haven’t watched the Netflix show yet, but it sounds like we’re of a mind.
Oh dear, I was going to watch it, but now I don’t know. Jane-Eyring Anne, really ? I don’t think so, no. Avonlea has to be a place of quiet, solid, habits-loving people, not of windswept moors and tragic secrets.
SPOILERS IN THIS COMMENT SORRY.
I was looking for the cheery, dreamy, resilient Anne whom everyone in town eventually falls in love with, and so the darkness of PTSD-Anne was unsettling. I couldn’t stop watching though, because the actors were spot on. I also was LAUGHING OUT LOUD at all the parts they retained from the books – the drunken episode with Diana in particular. Some additions worked well (Anne’s period), others less so (Anne saves the Gillis house; Gilbert working in the docks?!??), and others were no no NO (Matthew attempting suicide; the lost loves of Matthew and Marilla; robber boarders). I longed to see more of how Anne excelled in school and in her elocution demonstrations. I wanted to see that CARROTS scene played out better.
Still. Still. Will I be waiting on Season 2?!? You betcha. If only to witness Anne and Gilbert marry and have their 6 (7?) babies. (But I guess that would take…5 seasons or so).
A darker, grittier Anne – I don’t know… I love the books so much. The copy my mother gave to me for Christmas when I was ten is sitting five feet away from me right now and it’s been read to shreds. I played Anne in the school play when I was twelve; we went to P.E.I. for a vacation so I could see it all for myself. My father scoured every bookshop in London to find me a copy of Anne of Windy Willows (Anne of Windy Poplars is a highly abridged version). I wrote Anne fan fiction before I knew fan fiction was a thing. You get the idea.
I guess I’m with Lucy Maud Montgomery, who, when she was accused of making things too sweetness and light, replied along the lines that pine forests are just as real as pig sties and a great deal more pleasant to be in.
SPOILERS BELOW
Background: I first read Anne of Green Gables when I was 6 and have re-read it (and the rest of the Anne books) at least every couple of years in the intervening 34 years. I love these books. The Sullivan adaptation was OK and I re-watch it occasionally, but it is the books that I love.
That being said, I went in to this new Anne adaptation with some skepticism, having heard it called a “grittier” Anne for the 21st century. I don’t want a “gritty” Anne – I want Anne from the books.
What I loved: the casting (especially Anne, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, Matthew, and Diana); the cinematography (it is a visually stunning adaptation).
What I didn’t like: the plot changes mentioned in the post and comments (as I said, I want Anne from the books!), the character changes (PTSD Anne, suicidal Matthew, Billy Andrews the talkative bully, orphan Gilbert – his mother is a living character in the books).
And now the question is, will I continue to watch this series? I don’t know yet. If I can set the books aside and compartmentalize the series, I might be able to enjoy it for what it is because I think that the acting and the filming are fabulous; but if I keep comparing it to the books, I will hate it. To be determined…
I loved the anne books and the Megan Follows tv movies as a child. Eventually I edited my annual rereads to only Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island because clearly I’m here for the romance factor and I adored Gilbert. I remember distinctly as a kid not liking some the more saccharine seeming sunniness of the books but I honestly never thought, hey what these books need is a gritty adaptation with more trauma and more drama. I am not here for that. Although personally I was, at ten, traumatized by the death of their first baby in Anne’s House of Dreams and always hated that book and the following ones as a result. I’m not equipped to handle that kind of thing in my fictional readings. So I’ll be staying away.
I am two episodes in and I’m not sure I will make it any further. The acting is great but the departures in storyline are going to be too great for me. Not loving it at all.
SPOILERS, PROBABLY.
I never read the Anne of Green Gables books as a child. My best friend LOVED them though so I tried to read it as an adult and I had to give up because MY GOD Anne talks too damn much. I have, however, enjoyed watching the Sullivan movies whenever I caught them.
The trailer for “Anne With An E” looked great and I thought “Ooh, this will be good to watch with my 9 year old daughter” and so we sat down to watch it on Mother’s Day. We ended up turning it off about 20 minutes before the first episode ended. I was surprised by the gritty backstory and just kind of put off by how long they were dragging out the whole “will we/won’t we keep her” thing. I googled some reviews and when I read about where they were going to go with the menacing boarders and Matthew’s suicide attempt and Gilbert becoming an orphan too I was like, “Wow, this is too much.” So I asked my daughter whether she liked it and wanted to keep watching or if she didn’t like it and wanted to turn it off, and she said she wanted to turn it off and we did.
I adored the recent Jane Eyre with Fassbender so I did sort of get those vibes but that wasn’t what I was expecting from the show and it certainly isn’t what I was hoping for. Usually I can get behind a “gritty” remake that gives people more realistic backstories, etc., but that wasn’t the experience I wanted to have when I was watching it with my daughter.
Samantha Field, who is a survivor, talks about this series through the lens of abuse. It’s an interesting view.
http://samanthapfield.com/2017/05/19/what-anne-shirley-means-to-me/
This, all of this, you are my people.
Look, the book didn’t act like Anne’s life prior to Green Gables was sweetness and light, but it didn’t beat you over the head with it, either. Lucy Maud assumed that her audience could do the math and figure out that Anne had seen some shit (borne out by the fact that her experiences had left her with certain coping mechanisms and even a skill set). I also loved the 1980s Anne, and WHY isn’t that on streaming? So I really wanted to watch this, and was a bit taken aback by how grimdark it got in parts. And yeah, I might wait a couple years before watching this with the girly spawn.
This was one superb series I thoroughly enjoyed every episode, and when it finished I expected to find out there would be a second series, but now find out that there is not going to be any at all, a very unfair thing to do to all those of us who watched and got enthralled by it, shame on you.
I guess I’m in the minority here but if the creators wanted to explore all of this why not simply write their own story? It seems like they changed enough that it could be a new story in its own right with the financial problems, Anne’s PTSD, Mathew contemplating suicide (Yikes!) It could have been a more “realistic” story of what an orphan’s life at that time and place was. Using the Anne books just seems opportunistic to me. It’s like they didn’t really want to follow the book but they wanted the audience that would come from calling it Anne Shirley’s story. I guess my feeling is if you think you can do it better than the original author, then do so. It’s not like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s story where there was a real Laura and a real story behind it. Anne was a fictional character so her “experience” was Lucy Maud Montgomery’s creation.
I didn’t watch it when it was on CBC, and it doesn’t seem to be on Netflix in Canada. *sigh*
I totally missed the Jane Eyre references! This is why I love SBTB!
So full disclosure, this series had a different resonance for me because my grandmother and her sisters were from Atlantic Canada. They were of the generation that would have been the children of the Avonlea students. So I was definitely measuring this against our family stories–for instance, Great-Grandpa insisted all of them have training for jobs, because “he wasn’t supporting them for the rest of their lives.” I think some Americans fall into the trap of thinking of Canada as “cute,” with the politeness and the Mounties and the handsome Prime Minister, and while Canada is many fascinating things, it is not cute. On that level, I liked the darker tone although not so much the melodrama…
SPOILERS BELOW
…and my weirdly specific nitpick is that there was no way they would be doing a graveside service for Gilbert’s father with a foot of snow on the ground. Two of my grandparents died in the winter in New England and you do the memorial right away but the burial is later, in the spring, once the ground thaws.
Overall, though, I liked a lot–I thought Anne was very well cast in what has to be a difficult part, given that you have a young actor who is onscreen a LOT and performing moments that a lot of the audience knows by heart. I thought that having Anne’s over-the-top imagination as a more explicit reaction to past trauma worked well–I had never thought of the character that way before. I liked the casting of all the adults and I assumed the greater attention to their storylines was partly about the limitations to the hours the teen actors was allowed to work–although I would have preferred either Matthew or Marilla to have a doomed romance storyline, not both. I thought the new additions worked best when it was material that LM Montgomery couldn’t have published given when she was writing…Anne’s reaction to getting her period was perfect, and not a transition that you see on television very often, especially not in historical drama. Poor Marilla–Anne in general, plus hormones, plus a big shock.
I’ve watched the first two episodes, and I agree with the varied feelings of “I don’t like this, but I see why the choice was made”, “This is okay”, and “I don’t like this, and DO NOT WANT.” I’ll have to see how I feel as I continue through the series.
Where’s Anne gone! I loved it so much! I laugh and cryed, the actresses and actors were wonderful. I want the next series now please! I want to watch it again.
Question for Anne officianados: Most people mention the 1980’s version when discussing the Anne Series and its various adaptations. Have any of you seen the adaptations of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars done in the 1930’s and 1940’s by actress Dawn O’Day who changed her stage name to Anne Shirley? I’d be interested to see your thoughts on those films as compared to the 1980’s versions. Seeing these thoughts might help me jog my memory about which version I saw as a child.
All the episode titles are from “Jane Eyre.” So you’re not just seeing things there.
I actually wasn’t a huge fan of the 80s mini-series, so I’m actually interested to see how I like this one. I need to sit down and actually start it.
I watched episode one and stopped. Sure there were things I quite enjoyed, but I was not into either the actress portraying Anne or the darkness. I grew up reading and watching Anne, heck I’ve even done a tour of Anne locations in PEI – and I don’t want a dark and depressing Anne.
I wondered with this show, as I do with any adaptation that takes a very different tone from a beloved original – why don’t they just write something original?!
@Laura Jardine – you should be able to stream the whole series from the CBC website, and it’s also available through the CBC TV app. I don’t have a TV so binge watched the whole series in 2 sittings on the app after all the episodes had aired.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing more reactions to this series as I started watching it when it aired on the CBC and my feelings have been…mixed.
Full disclosure, the Anne books and the Kevin Sullivan series were one of Those Stories from my childhood; the kind that are in some way formative and stay with you. SO needless to say, I have a lot of feelings about Anne Shirley, though those are now somewhat tempered by being an adult. 😉
The first episode I enjoyed, with maybe some space for argument over whether Anne’s character was maybe turned up to 11. The flashbacks I thought were pretty grim, but I didn’t have too much of a problem, as on re-reading the first book a few years ago, adult me was able to read between then lines that child me hadn’t, and was pretty horrified at Anne’s childhood.
And then I watched the second episode and it went full-tilt drama llama. Not only does Anne actually get sent back to the orphanage, the Cuthberts figure out the truth just a moment too late! And Matthew races to get to the orphanage! But when he gets there Anne has run away! And then there’s a whole dramatic scene at a train station where he has to convince Anne to come with him!
Yeah, that threw me.
Watching the rest of the episodes (after a bit of a break, I wasn’t in a hurry to see what else they’d done)…I think I found them mostly fine? I really do like who they’ve cast for all the characters, including Anne (though similarly, Jonathan Crombie will always be Gilbert in my heart. :'( ). I think some changes or expansions to the story work all right, and don’t begrudge them, but I think what has made me more dissatisfied with the series is the marked change in tone, particularly the addition of major drama. The books and the Sullivan series could be quite sad at times, but were still fairly gentle, and the drama was generally more of the everyday kind. The PTSD and the discrimination Anne faces seem to me to have enough basis–if barely hinted at–in the original books (Mrs. Lynde does tell Marilla those stories about orphans who’ve murdered the families they went to stay with, so I can believe there would be some larger societal mistrust) to make me willing to go with more exploration of them in the series. Wild chases after Anne and the whole criminal boarders thing starts straining my credulity.
And seconding the need for the Sullivan series on streaming!
One of my problems with this adaptation was that Anne doesn’t change. In the books she and the Cuthberts save each other and grow. This Anne remains trapped in her past and does not blossom, she is still essentially the same character in episode 7 as episode 1, and while this is probably more realistic it isn’t artistically right for me. And as for the end of the final episode it’s quite clear what will happen next SPOILER obviously Matthew and Marilla will have to leave Anne at HOME, ALONE whereupon she will have to defeat the bad men with her plucky orphan wit by heating up doorknobs and suchlike …
SPOILERS FOLLOW. ALSO SWEARING. SO, SO MUCH SWEARING.
I didn’t even make it through the first episode before I noped the fuck out of there. I hated this adaptation. It felt like a betrayal of everything the Anne books stand for. I have obviously seen the 1980s miniseries, but my heart has always belonged to the books, which I’ve read so many times that my copies are in tatters.
Things I hated about the adaptation, in no particular order:
1. Graphic depiction of child abuse. I am capable of understanding that Anne’s past is grimdark without seeing her bent over a stump and flogged until her abuser literally dies from the exertion.
2. Why the fuckity fuck did they try to turn Matthew into an action hero? He doesn’t need to race his horse through the surf to be a good man. His heroism is rooted in his unconditional acceptance, love, and support of a little girl who has never experienced any of those things. His strength is in his gentleness. He doesn’t need to be Indiana goddamn Jones. Can we not have one male character who doesn’t have to resort to violence to prove his masculinity? For fuck’s sake.
3. Ignoring the feminism already present in the books in favor of the anvilicious “girls can do anything boys can do!” speech, AKA the world’s most superficial interpretation of feminism. What ever happened to showing and not telling? It doesn’t need to be spelled out that Anne is brilliant and capable; we can see it for ourselves–at least in the books. The show lacks any vestige of subtlety, joy, or charm, and in my opinion, it also shows a lack of respect and trust for its audience. We can figure things out without patronizing speeches.
The showrunner, Moira Walley-Beckett, claims, “We’ve accomplished a seamless merging of this contemporary adaptation and Lucy’s words, so that by the time we get to the end, you can’t really tell what was there and what wasn’t.”
Bullshit. This is no more seamless than the “restoration” of Ecce Homo.
I’ve been watching with my 10yo, and she. Is. ENCHANTED. with the new version. She loves the drama drama drama, she LOVES the girl that plays ANNE (we BOTH love the girl who plays Diana because we remember her from Odd Squad — even though she’s not nearly plump enough to be Diana). The woman who plays Marilla is amazing, and Matthew grew on me.
With that said… I have thoughts and feelings. So many of them (thanks, Anne!). I’m actually ok with Anne having some PTSD. That seems logical to me. I’m NOT ok with them adding a bunch of extra-textual weirdness. The books have enough excitement without adding a bunch? Though I really enjoyed when Anne got her period?
I also wonder why they added a bunch of drama at school when Josie Pye is such a classic mean girl (as I remember). The Pyes end up harassing Anne throughout her life, and that’s just…sitting there… in the series.
Basically, I’m treating the series as fanfic.
I really liked it, though I haven’t read the books and saw only bits of the earlier adaptation. Not surprising, though, as I note from above that those who knew and loved the books seem to like the new version the least. I loved the Jane Eyre references. Like Anne with an E, Jane Eyre can be ridiculously dramatic but she is tough, brave and right, as well.
“I do think the book plays Anne’s initial “you don’t want me” reaction a bit callously–for laughs.”
Um, no. I couldn’t disagree with you more. Maud Montgomery went her whole childhood feeling unwanted. She didn’t play Anne’s suffering for laughs. She played it true to Anne’s character and age. It’s written perfectly.
As for this “remake,” it’s a pile of BS. You want to write something “new” and edgy written in the time period? Then write something new. Don’t shred a classic.
This is an insult to Montgomery’s talent and legacy.
Around my middle school years I read all of the Anne books each summer, lent and re-lent to me by my friend’s mom who loved them when she was growing up.
Two years ago I was given a slender biography of L.M.Montgomery and it about broke my heart. Now I not only marvel at the world she created in Anne, but in her ability to do so despite the adversity she faced constantly.
Any Canadians who missed the series when it was first broadcast on CBC can watch it here:
http://watch.cbc.ca/anne/season-1/e8abfc85-670b-4034-b39c-54aba9c0ce43
SLIGHTLY SPOILERISH RESPONSE BELOW
Other people have said it better than I can, but the well-publicized tweaks to the story in this version (especially suicide!Matthew and stevedore!Gilbert) left me wholly unwilling to watch the show. The classic elements of a classic story should not be fucked with.
The orphan subplot is a particularly sensitive point for me. My paternal grandmother was one of over 100,000 “Home Children” sent from England to Canada to be free labour for the families who accepted them: the girls became unpaid household servants, the boys became farm hands. My own gran’s experience was so unhappy that she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it – all I know is that she passed through several families before she reached her majority. (Many of these children weren’t actually orphans; for example, my great-grandmother was a young unmarried girl who was too sickly to raise her baby, much as she wanted to.)
Anne’s backstory as revealed in the early chapters of the book is heartbreaking in part because of her sadly understated acceptance of her situation (all the more sad because she doesn’t fully comprehend, as the Cuthberts do, just how appalling it is), and because she retains enough memory of being loved by her birth family to be aware of what she’s missing. Turning this into mustache-twirling melodrama is just offensive.
Dread Pirate Rachel captured my feelings exactly. I have read the entire series at least a dozen times (and with every re-read, I find something I missed). I also enjoyed the first two Sullivan movies though it was always the books for me. This adaption, however, was literally unwatchable. I don’t need to see graphic depictions of child abuse to know that Anne had a miserable existence prior to being adopted. I also HATED what they did to the story of Anne and Gilbert. The writers here missed the whole point. The scene where Gilbert says that line about a cute girl being a cute girl (not a spoiler as it was in previews) makes me want to hurl. Gilbert was so attracted to Anne because she didn’t take any of his BS and did not fall all over him like the rest of the girls in school. He fell in love with her spirit and her intelligence, which set her apart from her peers. Making it about her looks is just insulting.
Spoilers
And then they killed off his dad and had him becoming an orphan?!? This just makes no sense.
Also to have Marilla send Anne back to the orphanage when she loses her brooch is so completely out of character it boggles the mind. The writers should be forced to take LMM’s name off this production because this is NOT Anne Shirley.
SPOILERS
I think the drama is overdone, especially as the series progresses and *especially* in the final episode when, as RHG and Cleo say, everything happens SO MUCH. And Gilbert, for all that he is adorable, behaves and sounds like a 21st-century boy.
But dear God, I love this Anne, and I love this Marilla, and Matthew (who is on the autism spectrum, I think, and why did I never consider a Matthew on the spectrum before now?), and I appreciate the palpable friendship between Marilla and Rachel Lynde, and both Marilla and Anne struggling to believe that someone might want them in the feminine role (mother/daughter) they each believed they’d never be, and Anne’s imagination both saving her and complicating things further (she catastrophizes just like I do). I have my quibbles with what was done, but I so want to see more of it. We didn’t even get to Anne dyeing her hair green yet…
You know what I hate the most about this? OH NO ANNE MUST BE BEATEN AND ACTIVELY ABUSED! Because treating a sensitive, intelligent child who is utterly alone in the world as a handy household appliance and never ever listening to her when her head is full of ideas and beauty and questioning is goddamn emotional neglect and abuse, and it’s a shitty thing that really happens that people mock and ignore, because it’s just your stupid feelings and you can’t show them any blood. We do NOT need any more of that garbage! It’s sloppy and lazy and disrespectful.
Addendum: Car chases do not go in Anne Of Green Gables, that is stupid and much too Hollywood.
Addendum to addendum: Suicide is not the answer, a sin in this culture, and Anne is on her way home and would’ve found the body and I hate this Matthew for even thinking of letting that happen. >C
Book Fan, I love you. When I even heard that that happened I was like, “I can’t watch this, I’ll THROW THINGS AND SCREAM.”
Too many series. NETFLIX NEVER ADDS MANY MOVIES. PLUS NUMEROUS DUBBED
MOVIES. I HAVE BETTER MOVIES ON HBO,SHOWTIME, CINEMAX. I’M SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING DROPPING NETFLIX, SAME OLD WMOVIES ALL THE TIME
Geraldine James as Marilla not Geraldine Page of course.
As the 13 year old girl who literally cried when watching the first hour (and only the first hour) of Anne’s Continuing Story because it deviated so far from the books I had already literally read to pieces, I could tell from the trailers of Anne With An E that I wouldn’t be touching this series with a 10 foot pole.
I’m not sure why we had to turn this sweet uplifting story into a cheap Hollywood drama for drama’s sake, adding enough “grit” and action and shouting politically correct labels from the rooftops to make this appealing to a modern audience. LM Montgomery had far more respect and high expectations for the intelligence and depth of her reader.
Anyone else thinking of 17 year old Anne’s “Avril’s Atonement,” plastered all over with baking powder advertisements? Maybe her Gilbert hasn’t shown up yet and told her to write a real story.
I’m going to pass for now. The first book and the 80’s adaption are two of the things I turn to when the world gets too dark and full of evil people.
I’m not married to fluff and the 80’s adaptation either, and of course Anne’s life was far from a bed of roses before she came to Avonlea. But this doesn’t sound like a remake I would enjoy.
For me, Dread Pirate Rachel said it all!
And….I never understand why Hollywood always has to fuck with great literature.