This series is based on the 1908 L. M. Montgomery novel Anne of Green Gables, which I read as a young girl. I fondly remembered reading certain things as they happened in the show, but I don’t remember well enough to say if the show deviated much from the book. But I can say that I enjoyed this series more than I thought I would.
This book is up there with the most famous things to come out of Canada. 50 million copies sold, prequels, sequels, numerous adaptations including musicals, plays, films, made for television movies, and animated and live-action tv series, Anne of Green Gables probably places right behind Beiber in a Canadian popularity contest. I’ve only read the book many years ago and seen this most recent series, so I can’t say how this adaptation stacks up to the others, but I read this one is grittier than past adaptations, and I know I liked both the book and the show more than I like Beiber.
Anne Shirley is imaginative, dramatic and talkative, and many consider her to be strange; so though most people don’t like her at first, she eventually grows on them. She has a tendency to say whatever is on her mind, but she’s intelligent, so what’s on her mind is often entertaining. If she feels insulted or that she’s right about something, she won’t hold her punches, whether to an elder nor a peer, but she’s also great at apologizing and fessing up when she’s wrong.
Anne is an orphan, and grew up between orphanages *which were better known as asylums in those days* and people that would offer money to the orphanages for laborers *basically child slaves*.
Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert are siblings in their 50s and 60s who never married and work their family farm together. Getting into their later years, they sought a young male from an orphanage to help with things around the farm. But due to a mix up, they instead get 13 year old, Anne Shirley. Matthew is expecting a boy when he arrives at the train station to find Anne anxiously waiting to be brought to her new home, Green Gables. Matthew can’t bring himself to leave her at the train station alone so he brings her home on their horse drawn carriage.
The ride home is several hours and Anne talks almost non-stop. Thankfully for the viewer, unlike for Matthew, we get breaks and don’t have to hear every word, but we do get to hear the things Anne says that tip Matthew off about her rough upbringing and you can see her start to tug at his heart already.
Marilla does not get the opportunity to hear the things Matthew heard on the ride and she’s immediately upset by the whole situation and Anne spends the first night devastated, sure she’ll be sent back to the asylum from the lovely Green Gables. But when Marilla sees the situation Anne would be returning to, she agrees with Matthew and Anne is given the chance to stay at Green Gables longer.
While Anne tries to settle in as part of the family, they are handed many trials as she meets new people and starts school. Her imagination and wit get her into trouble often, though it’s never her intention. But it’s that very same imagination and wit that help her redeem herself and win over the friends and neighbors of the Cuthbert’s, one by one.
This timeless tale is great for the old and the young-ish and everything in between. Originally airing on CBC in Canada and available everywhere else by Netflix, but it’s not a Netflix original, so we’ll more than likely see the second season that the first set up *sorry, I’m very upset with Netflix for cancelling Sense8. I mean,WTF?!*. The intro theme song is an updated but shortened version of The Tragically Hip’s “Ahead by a Century”, it’s a cool little song and very appropriate to Anne’s tale.
TL;DR: Parable of a precocious, perceptive, pedantic preteen, practicing at placating parishioners.
-Morgan@1063RL