Flowers in the Attic (2014)
V.C. Andrews' books, whatever else you can say about them, are incredibly compelling. The latest adaptation of Flowers in the Attic, alas, is not.
Here are the five best things about it:
5. Ellyn Burstyn as the stern, forbidding grandmother, who manages to make a fairy tale witch into a human being. At two key points in this version, the smallest bits of human sympathy almost break through, and that makes her violence even more frightening. But what makes her most human are the moments when you can most clearly see that she is an abuser made by a cycle of abuse, and Burstyn's accomplishment is that these moments are not when she is almost capable of pity, but the moments when she is most vicious.
4. Heather Graham's shrill glassy-eyed narcissism as Corinne (the mother).
3. Kiernan Shierpa's sullen Cathy. Even as the voice over claims that the Dollangangers were happy in Eden before the Fall, Christopher is a little too devoted to his mother and Cathy is a little too much of a Daddy's girl; and of course Daddy gives her a promise ring and chivvies her out of sulks, exactly like he does her mother, and of course Cathy glowers at her mother's hollow smile. "You're so like your grandmother," Corinne says,* when she is still pretending to herself that she loves her children; and you can see the young girl and the old woman have the same steel. Soon they have the same rage, and you can only hope they won't express it the same way.
* "... who I hate, by the way. Whoops!"
2. The TV movie opens with a parental advisory, because apparently we are all pretending that pre-teen girls haven't been obsessed with these books for over thirty years.
1. The title card logo looks exactly like those incredibly creepy cut-out covers from the 80s versions of the books. Exactly.
cups brewed at DW
Here are the five best things about it:
5. Ellyn Burstyn as the stern, forbidding grandmother, who manages to make a fairy tale witch into a human being. At two key points in this version, the smallest bits of human sympathy almost break through, and that makes her violence even more frightening. But what makes her most human are the moments when you can most clearly see that she is an abuser made by a cycle of abuse, and Burstyn's accomplishment is that these moments are not when she is almost capable of pity, but the moments when she is most vicious.
4. Heather Graham's shrill glassy-eyed narcissism as Corinne (the mother).
3. Kiernan Shierpa's sullen Cathy. Even as the voice over claims that the Dollangangers were happy in Eden before the Fall, Christopher is a little too devoted to his mother and Cathy is a little too much of a Daddy's girl; and of course Daddy gives her a promise ring and chivvies her out of sulks, exactly like he does her mother, and of course Cathy glowers at her mother's hollow smile. "You're so like your grandmother," Corinne says,* when she is still pretending to herself that she loves her children; and you can see the young girl and the old woman have the same steel. Soon they have the same rage, and you can only hope they won't express it the same way.
* "... who I hate, by the way. Whoops!"
2. The TV movie opens with a parental advisory, because apparently we are all pretending that pre-teen girls haven't been obsessed with these books for over thirty years.
1. The title card logo looks exactly like those incredibly creepy cut-out covers from the 80s versions of the books. Exactly.
cups brewed at DW