This recent The Secret Garden both respects and admires children’s imagination as its young characters discover their own way to grapple with loss, isolation, and loneliness.

Tomris Laffly

RogerEbert.com

Though Munden attempts to overload our senses with rich visuals, The Secret Garden does end up feeling kind of slight, like the film rushed through the SparkNotes version of the story.

This film is not the best representation of Burnett’s works, which toed the line between the magical and the painful — but in the moments when it succeeds, The Secret Garden blossoms into something beautiful.