The Secret Garden (1993)

Overprivileged yet neglected and extremely unhappy young girl loses her parents in an accident and is sent to her Uncle's home where she is put under the care of the stern Mrs. Medlock. She has a hard time staying unhappy once she discovers a walled-in garden and befriends Dickon, whose many animal friends basically makes him a junior Doctor Dolittle. Her sickly cousin Colin benefits from the discovery as well.

It's so thin and the two child actors portraying the cousins are woefully inept. Though Maggie Smith and John Lynch are doing their best as Medlock and Colin's father respectively, they cannot overcome the extremely dull telling. In short, if you want to see a Frances Hodgson Burnett adaptation about a young girl born in India who loses her parents, relocates to England to live under a strict matron, finds her own joy while helping to transform the life of another unfortunate child, and eventually also gains a loving parent, go for 1995's winning The Little Princess instead and thank me later.

C