The Chalk Garden

An elderly woman in a house by the sea cannot manage her sixteen-year-old granddaughter. Laurel lies, starts fires and drives away every governess who comes. The new arrival, Miss Madrigal, does not leave. She sees through the girl's lies, does not retaliate and waits. But she has a past of her own that she will not discuss, and the butler knows it. The subject is not education but both of them concealing their histories. Laurel was abandoned by her mother and has turned it into a story; Madrigal has lived through something genuinely serious and says nothing. The film holds the two on the same plane. The form comes from the theatre and stays there: the garden, the drawing room, a courtroom scene. The speech is long and literary. The chalky soil by the sea, a garden where nothing takes root, carries the metaphor in the title. The source is Enid Bagnold's play. Hayley Mills and John Mills, father and daughter in life, play opposite each other here in roles that are not that. Edith Evans was nominated for an Oscar as the grandmother. Deborah Kerr plays Madrigal. Ronald Neame directs. Who it is for: viewers who like British adaptations of plays and watching acting. Who it is not for: anyone expecting film language; this one does not leave its stage structure.