Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Green Gables (1985) is really a miniseries and runs over three hours. It is adapted from Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel. On Prince Edward Island, an elderly brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla, ask an orphanage for a boy to help on the farm. A girl gets off the train instead: Anne Shirley, eleven years old, red haired, unable to stop talking or imagining. The reason the book is still read is that Anne is not a well behaved child. She lies, she loses her temper, she refuses to let go of an idea, and when someone comments on her hair she breaks a slate over his head. The best thing in the adaptation is Matthew. This nearly silent man softening toward Anne carries the emotion of the whole thing, and Richard Farnsworth manages it in single lines. Megan Follows has been identified with the part ever since. In Canada this adaptation is a generation's shared memory. In Japan the Anne cult is on another level entirely, after the book was translated in 1952 and became extraordinarily loved there. It runs 199 minutes. Good for: classic adaptations, family films, and period drama. Comfortable with children. Less good for: it is long, paced like television, and the production values belong to eighties TV.