The healing magic of nature has long been the driving message of Frances Hodgson Burnett‘s beloved children’s novel The Secret Garden. But in the shiny new adaptation of the literary classic, the titular garden may actually be magical? With a producing team that hails from Harry Potter and Paddington, that could very well be the case. Watch the official The Secret Garden trailer below.

The Secret Garden Trailer

One of my favorite things about the 1993 adaptation of The Secret Garden, as well as the original book itself, was how wild and untamed it and its central character was. Mary Lennox was a spoiled brat, and that was game-changing for me as a young reader and movie watcher. The desolate moors where The Secret Garden takes place was intimidating and wild, and the garden that Mary stumbles upon was wilder still. But there’s something very shiny and neat about this new adaptation of The Secret Garden. The wildness has been trimmed down, the nature a little too picturesque and pretty.

But perhaps that’s part of the creative liberties that director Marc Munden (Utopia, Black Sails) and writer Jack Thorne (Wonder, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) will be taking with this new adaptation. From the looks of the trailer, the garden at the center of The Secret Garden may actually be magical in this film — a bit of a departure from the book, where the garden only becomes the inspiration and vessel for the innate goodness inside Mary all along. Newcomer Dixie Egerickx plays the young orphan Mary Lennox, and Colin Firth plays her uncle, the distant and grief-stricken Archibald Craven. Meanwhile, the prickly Mrs. Medlock is played by Julie Walters, Edan Hayhurst plays Mary’s sickly cousin Colin, and His Dark Materials’ Amir Wilson plays Dickon.

Here’s the synopsis for The Secret Garden:

THE SECRET GARDEN tells the story of Mary Lennox (Dixie Egerickx, Genius), a prickly and unloved 10-year-old girl, born in India to wealthy British parents. When they suddenly die, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven (Colin Firth – A Single Man, The King’s Speech) on his remote country estate deep in the Yorkshire moors. There, she begins to uncover many family secrets, particularly after meeting her sickly cousin Colin (Edan Hayhurst, Genius), who has been shut away in a wing of the house. Together, these two damaged, slightly misfit children heal each other through their discovery of a wondrous secret garden, lost in the grounds of Misselthwaite Manor. A magical place of adventure that will change their lives forever.

The Secret Garden hits theaters in the UK on April 17, 2020 with a U.S. release soon to follow.

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