Along with reading the books of L.M. Montgomery, another part of the month-long L.M. Montgomery challenge hosted by Carrie @ Reading To Know that I’m participating in includes watching any of the films based off her books. Last week I spent a couple of days watching the 1985 miniseries based off Anne of Green Gables. I read the book for the first time in November and immediately fell in love with this story and cast of characters, so I was pretty excited to watch the film, challenge or no.
I thought this was a really well done telling of the original story, including all of the truly memorable scenes I could remember, leaving little out in the 3 hours of run time. I liked the actors chosen and think Megan Follows in particular did a great job portraying Anne. And while I did occasionally notice a few moments of less than stellar acting (mostly that hottie, Gilbert Blythe (played by Jonathan Crombie), stumbling over a few of his lines), for some reason those moments just somehow made the whole thing seem more real to me – like they might be real people who aren’t always suave and well spoken. It definitely gave the show that same authentic and easy to relate to quality that I think the books have.
This is probably not a movie to force your husbands or boyfriends to sit through. It’s not filled to the brim with action, although watching Diana (played by Schuyler Grant) was pretty hysterical, I think this movie might be more suited to people who have read the books or would enjoy that kind of coming of age, admittedly sort of chick flick story. Watch this one with your girlfriends, your daughters, your mothers – and maybe your husband will secretly watch along while pretending to be playing a computer game or reading Slashdot articles. Stranger things have been known to happen.
I know a lot of people who have seen this miniseries but have never read the books, and probably others who read the books but never watched the show. I have now read the book and seen the first film and I have to say I am now a huge fan of both. How about you?
Mommablogsalot 
5 responses to “DVD Review: Anne of Green Gables (1985)”
I had never heard of Anne until those films first came out as a mini-series on PBS, but I loved them and then read all the books — and love those, too. I thought the film was excellently cast and my husband did enjoy it with me.
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Definitely a huge fan of both. =) (Probably one of the only movie adaptations of a book that I absolutely LOVE and adore!)
Actually, my dad thought Anne was a riot of a character and truly enjoyed watching Anne (and the Road to Avonlea series) with me. There is dry humor there and that can be appealing. In my head, it’s way better to “force” a male to watch Anne than Pride & Prejudice. There is far more entertainment involved and it’s not just about marriage and romance. =)
My take. Just sayin’!
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So happy that you love this. Did you know there are two more series of it? All just as wonderful.
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@ jean m. : I think there’s a chance Dan would have liked it, but I wasn’t going to ask him to sit through a 3 hour miniseries – I broached the idea briefly without mentioning the runtime and he gave me a pretty firm “no” – he’s usually a pretty good sport so I didn’t push the issue, figuring it would be more fun to watch by myself during the day anyway.
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Of course I’ve done both. I’d like to think I had a small hand in convincing you to do exactly both.:)
I agree the actors are great and it really gives you a better visual of what the book described in such detail. I also think this is probably one of the few movies/series that they did not screw it up from the book.
It’s funny because in high school I had Gables and Avonlea on VHS (stop me if I already told you this one) I got my friends hooked and they begged me to have our English teacher show it to class for the end of finals. The boys in my class actually enjoyed it and we’re disappointed we didn’t have time to see Avonlea.
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