The Secret Garden rating: asin: 6304698690 binding: DVD list price: $12.98 USD amazon price: $6.99 USD

Now that summer is here, I am watching more movies on DVD. I am always delighted when a movie turns out to have a positive adoption spin, especially when I was unaware of there being an adoption theme in the movie. This happened when I watched the movie The Secret Garden.

From what I understand, this is actually a popular children’s book. However, I never read it and knew nothing about it other than that a friend told me that I would like it. She was right.

The movie is about a ten-year-old girl named Mary who was just an accessory to her party-going parents. Her parents die in an earthquake, so Mary is sent to live with her uncle, who was married to the twin sister of Mary’s mother before the sister died. Other children think Mary is a freak because she never cries, not even when she learns of her parents’ death.

Mary is clearly unwanted in her new house (which is really a mansion – almost like a dreary castle). Her uncle is still grieving the loss of his beloved wife and has no room in his heart for his niece. Mary stumbles upon an abandoned garden that is as “unwanted” as she is, and as she brings the garden back to life, she finds life in herself, which she spreads to the entire household.

By the end of the movie, the uncle learns how to laugh, and Mary learns how to cry. Mary is finally wanted just as much as the beautiful garden she tended.