Even bland Anne’s a welcome change
★★★ There’s little room for ‘‘providence’’ in this sweet, but slight adaptation of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s children’s classic.
So ubiquitous in the muchloved mid-1980s Canadian miniseries, the word has been scrubbed out in this slightly twee makeover that also de-ages many of the central characters.
To be fair, it is hard to follow the intensity of Megan Follows and the towering, glowering performance by Colleen Dewhurst that marked out that globally adored version, but Sarah Botsford and Ellen Ballentine do an impressive job.
The latter is 11-year-old Anne Shirley, an orphaned Nova Scotian mistakenly sent to siblings Matthew (Martin Sheen) and Marilla Cuthbert (Botsford).
They wanted a boy who could help out with chores. They got an independent-minded, overly dramatic, incessantly chatty, daydreaming girl with ‘‘raspberry jam’’ hair. The natural inclination is to send her right back.
However, unsurprisingly, Anne inveigles her way into their hearts, even if she is a ‘‘genius for getting into trouble’’.
While some of the 1908 novel’s great set pieces are still intact – the ‘‘raspberry cordial"-infused high tea gone awry, her first encounter with local busybody Rachel Lynde – there’s a lack of danger or drama that renders things a little bland. Ballentine might be a suitably adorable muppet (even if the freckles look fake), but without some of the book’s later tragedies she’s given relatively little to do.
Still, as a clearly made-for-TV primer (look out for the pre-adbreak dramatic crescendos) for the world of Avonlea there’s a lot to like about a children’s adventure that doesn’t involve talking animals or people who wear capes.