Movie -- 1993 -- Netflix
The Secret Garden
Agnieszka Holland's 1993 live-action film. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox is orphaned in India and sent to her uncle's Yorkshire manor. She finds a locked garden, a cousin who thinks he cannot walk, and a house still grieving a dead wife. Slow, wintry, and kind -- the load is grief, not monsters.
Not suitable under 6; parental guidance to 9 (parents die, orphaned, gothic house, Colin's death-fear); ok from 10.
- Not suitable
- Parental guidance
- Ok
GentleGuide scale for sensitive kids. Not an ACCM or Classification Board rating.
About this title
- Classification
- G
- Length
- 101 minutes
- Consumer advice
- Very mild in impact
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Before you press play
A quiet 1993 period drama, not the 2020 CGI remake. Cold corridors, a walled garden coming back to life, and children who were not loved enough. The pictures stay G-rated. The feeling of being leftover after a death is the weather of the whole film.
- Parents dying
- Being sent to a stranger's house
- Grief that will not move
- A child who thinks he will die
- A gothic manor and night crying
- Friendship and a garden healing
What may feel big
An earthquake that kills Mary's parents; a ship to an uncle who will not see her; Misselthwaite's dark halls and unexplained crying; Colin's talk of dying and a fall from a wheelchair; uncle's dead wife in portraits; a night garden rite; Mary's first tears when she thinks she is unwanted.
4-6. Too much. Parents dying, a child left, and a house that sounds haunted sit on the attachment system. The garden cannot cancel the opening.
7-9. Seven, eight, and nine need a grown-up. Pause for the earthquake, the night crying, and Colin's death-talk. The garden helps after; it does not erase the orphan load.
10-12. The better band. They can hold a grief story that turns toward belonging. Sensitive kids may still go quiet at 'I am not wanted' and at Colin's fear he will die.
Triggers in this guide
Counts are how often that theme shows up in the notes -- not when it happens.
- Sadness 4
- Separation 2
- Scary Imagery 3
- Peril 1
- Relational Conflict 1