Had We But World Enough and Time
This weekend's review: Tom's Midnight Garden.
Just from the title, I knew that Tom’s Midnight Garden was going to be one of those stories where a bored child stumbles into a secret, magical world. I have a soft spot for those when done right, so that hunch was enough for me to give the movie a shot. And not only was I rewarded with a movie that did it right, it wound up being surprisingly thought-provoking as well.
While there is a framing device set in the modern day (or rather 1999), the bulk of the movie takes place in what I think is the 50’s. Tom (Anthony Way) is a young teenager or pre-teen who’s forced to spend part of the summer with his aunt and uncle (Greta Scacchi and James Wilby) so he won’t catch the measles from his brother. His aunt and uncle live in an apartment complex that used to be a manor house, and there’s very little there to appeal to a young boy; most of the neighbors are old and crotchety and there’s no garden for him to run around in, just a back door that leads to the garbage cans. On his first night, he hears the clock downstairs strike thirteen, and when he opens the back door, he discovers a huge garden. When he investigates the next day, he’s confused to only see the garbage bins, but quickly figures out that the garden only exists at night. He starts spending his nights sneaking downstairs to play in the garden, made easier by the fact that only a few minutes pass in the real world while he’s in the garden. While there are people in the garden, people wearing Victorian-era clothing, none of them can see them and are capable of walking right through him. But then one day, a young girl named Hatty (Florence Hoath), who’s neglected by the rest of her family (she’s a relation adopted after her parents died), reveals that she can see him, and the two of them start playing together. It’s at this point that the movie takes an unexpected turn.
My initial assumption was that the garden was like Narnia, another world or dimension. Once Hatty becomes aware of Tom, however, you start to suspect time travel may be involved. And after that, the movie starts having the characters have conversations about the nature of time and reality, including one which suggests that Tom and Hatty each think the other is a figment of their imagination. It all felt surprisingly deep to me, and made me curious as to how it was all going to play out. Add in the lovely settings and the charming acting, and all of the material surrounding the garden is very entertaining to watch in a variety of ways.
That being said, there are some aspects that don’t work entirely well. Chief among them are plot points that feel like they’re going to lead to more, and never do. There’s the ongoing discussion between the aunt and uncle about whether or not they want kids of their own, which gets a resolution but no concrete payoff. There’s a bit featuring Tom’s brother that comes out of nowhere and adds nothing to the plot, made worse by the fact that it happens in the third act, a time when you need to be tying up threads, not adding more. There’s a gardener (David Bradley) who also turns out to be able to see Tom and suspects him of being the devil, but this never leads to any real conflict. Worst of all, there’s a conflict that goes right up to the edge of being important, only to pull back at the last second. When Tom first arrives at the apartment, he runs into the tenant on the first floor (Liz Smith), who warns him that she doesn’t want him running up and down the stairs. Of course, Tom’s so excited about the garden that he runs down the stairs every night. After a few instances of this, the neighbor corners Tom and his aunt and scolds him, only for Tom to innocently claim that he’s not responsible. That night, he’s extra careful going down the stairs (and the neighbor opens the door and peers out suspiciously, forcing him to hide), but he’s soon back to running up and down the stairs. I assumed this was going to lead to a dramatic moment where he’s rushing to get to the garden because something bad happened the last time he was there, only to be caught by the neighbor and prevented from going, which leads to some sort of conflict in the garden. Instead, nothing like that happens at all, and the whole thing gets resolved by one line of dialogue. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and certainly doesn’t detract from the bulk of the movie, but you should never introduce the possibility of a clash and then fail to follow through. Chekov came up with that rule for a reason, after all.
Regardless of those flaws, this is a pleasant, sweet movie that I’d absolutely recommend checking out. It’s got a surprising amount of substance, while also containing the elements I’d expected, thus making it a win-win situation. Even if you’re an adult, I think you’ll feel a bit of childhood magic while watching it. And I think that’s a good thing for adults to experience every so often.
Just from the title, I knew that Tom’s Midnight Garden was going to be one of those stories where a bored child stumbles into a secret, magical world. I have a soft spot for those when done right, so that hunch was enough for me to give the movie a shot. And not only was I rewarded with a movie that did it right, it wound up being surprisingly thought-provoking as well.
While there is a framing device set in the modern day (or rather 1999), the bulk of the movie takes place in what I think is the 50’s. Tom (Anthony Way) is a young teenager or pre-teen who’s forced to spend part of the summer with his aunt and uncle (Greta Scacchi and James Wilby) so he won’t catch the measles from his brother. His aunt and uncle live in an apartment complex that used to be a manor house, and there’s very little there to appeal to a young boy; most of the neighbors are old and crotchety and there’s no garden for him to run around in, just a back door that leads to the garbage cans. On his first night, he hears the clock downstairs strike thirteen, and when he opens the back door, he discovers a huge garden. When he investigates the next day, he’s confused to only see the garbage bins, but quickly figures out that the garden only exists at night. He starts spending his nights sneaking downstairs to play in the garden, made easier by the fact that only a few minutes pass in the real world while he’s in the garden. While there are people in the garden, people wearing Victorian-era clothing, none of them can see them and are capable of walking right through him. But then one day, a young girl named Hatty (Florence Hoath), who’s neglected by the rest of her family (she’s a relation adopted after her parents died), reveals that she can see him, and the two of them start playing together. It’s at this point that the movie takes an unexpected turn.
My initial assumption was that the garden was like Narnia, another world or dimension. Once Hatty becomes aware of Tom, however, you start to suspect time travel may be involved. And after that, the movie starts having the characters have conversations about the nature of time and reality, including one which suggests that Tom and Hatty each think the other is a figment of their imagination. It all felt surprisingly deep to me, and made me curious as to how it was all going to play out. Add in the lovely settings and the charming acting, and all of the material surrounding the garden is very entertaining to watch in a variety of ways.
That being said, there are some aspects that don’t work entirely well. Chief among them are plot points that feel like they’re going to lead to more, and never do. There’s the ongoing discussion between the aunt and uncle about whether or not they want kids of their own, which gets a resolution but no concrete payoff. There’s a bit featuring Tom’s brother that comes out of nowhere and adds nothing to the plot, made worse by the fact that it happens in the third act, a time when you need to be tying up threads, not adding more. There’s a gardener (David Bradley) who also turns out to be able to see Tom and suspects him of being the devil, but this never leads to any real conflict. Worst of all, there’s a conflict that goes right up to the edge of being important, only to pull back at the last second. When Tom first arrives at the apartment, he runs into the tenant on the first floor (Liz Smith), who warns him that she doesn’t want him running up and down the stairs. Of course, Tom’s so excited about the garden that he runs down the stairs every night. After a few instances of this, the neighbor corners Tom and his aunt and scolds him, only for Tom to innocently claim that he’s not responsible. That night, he’s extra careful going down the stairs (and the neighbor opens the door and peers out suspiciously, forcing him to hide), but he’s soon back to running up and down the stairs. I assumed this was going to lead to a dramatic moment where he’s rushing to get to the garden because something bad happened the last time he was there, only to be caught by the neighbor and prevented from going, which leads to some sort of conflict in the garden. Instead, nothing like that happens at all, and the whole thing gets resolved by one line of dialogue. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and certainly doesn’t detract from the bulk of the movie, but you should never introduce the possibility of a clash and then fail to follow through. Chekov came up with that rule for a reason, after all.
Regardless of those flaws, this is a pleasant, sweet movie that I’d absolutely recommend checking out. It’s got a surprising amount of substance, while also containing the elements I’d expected, thus making it a win-win situation. Even if you’re an adult, I think you’ll feel a bit of childhood magic while watching it. And I think that’s a good thing for adults to experience every so often.