My thoughts on 'Anne With An E' (I realise I’m 5 years late to this)

[Classica]

I’m a massive Anne fan and had avoided this series so far as I thought I might not love it. My inner 8 year old is very loyal to Megan Follows' portrayal of Anne.*

Decided to give it a go yesterday.

Er…

Anne certainly looks very Anne-ish, skinny and pale and a bit unloved looking.

But why is she such a whiny bitch? Anne Shirley is not a whiny bitch. I realise Anne’s early childhood would have been traumatic, and it’s interesting they explore that a bit more, but they’ve changed her character too much. Bullying the hired hand (whose name they've changed from Jerry Buote)? That is not Anne!

And they’ve changed her surname to Cuthbert. Marilla would have never entertained such a sentimental gesture, certainly not in the early days. I think Geraldine James is a great actress and she makes a good Marilla, but for God’s sake she’s just joined some progressive mothers' circle. Marilla was in the Ladies’ Aid. They gossiped, and discussed preserves and pies, and made quilts!

And as for Matthew (he's no Richard Farnsworth) charging across the island on horseback to rescue Anne from child molesters and a life earning a living by reciting poems to people in a train station. That was unexpected.

Diana Barry’s parents doing some kind of panto turn as bitchy landed gentry, the other Avonlea residents bullying her at the Sunday school picnic, Anne discussing what’s involved in stroking a man’s mouse. I’m discombobulated.

I haven’t seen Gilbert yet, he’s probably a teenage beatnik. No doubt this version of 1880s PEI was an early adopter of the beatnik movement.

Do you think the producer thought the book is too ‘quiet’ to engage modern audiences, so they’ve had to beef it up a bit with more trauma and conflict?

Does this show get any better or am I likely to facepalm myself into a frenzy?

*tho I’m still shook from the final installment in the Kevin Sullivan series where a Anne dressed up as a nun and hared across to France to rescue Gilbert from a WWI pow camp.

I'm a huge AoGG fab and I didn't love Anne with an E (no one can beat Megan)
BUT
my oldest teenage daughter really disliked the books until she watched Anne with an E.
She found Anne in the books annoying and frustrating and too needy.
But the Anne in AWAE made sense to her. She said that anyone who had experienced as much loss as Anne would be traumatised and that the neediness made sense in that context.
I can kind of see her point.
I prefer the sweet sanitised version but I'm grateful that this made my daughter like the books!

EBD would be turning in her grave. Sorry for spoilers if you haven't seen it all - but - Aunt Josephine a lesbian? Miss Stacy wearing trousers? I'm sure there was no mention of Anne being beaten when she was young. It was portrayed more as if she had a lot of chores to do.
And getting involved in the treatment of indigenous Canadians?
It's just as if the producers had to include every single bit of today's woke culture and pretend that Anne would have been ok with it all. Sometimes it's better just to let the past lie and not try to distort it. I was disappointed.
I did love Geraldine James as Marilla though.

@StillMedusa

I'm glad this has warned me from watching it! I love ALL the LM Mongomery books (given to me by my Gran)

If you haven't.. make sure you read the Emily of New Moon books too, and the Story Girl ones.

I think Rilla of Ingleside is still one of my favourites of the Anne series though... the bit where Jem finally makes it back from WW1 and Little Dog Monday is still at the station waiting for him after 4 years... I don't think a line in a book has ever made me sob more!!!

Yes! Except for "Daddy, oh my daddy" in The Railway Children...

Likewise, so glad to have found this forum of kindred spirits but -Emily of New Moon books are the BEST!!! 😃😁

Sorry for the typo. Montgomery.

maddiemookins16mum

Jonathan crombie was fantastic as Gilbert and was amazing at captured his thoughts with a just look. How you can say the new Gilbert is better is a travesty.

Completely agree.

When TV or movie producers choose to dramatise a classic novel that is, presumably, because it is incredibly popular and has stood the test of time.

So WHY BLOODY CHANGE IT?

The arrogance of choosing a classic and then thinking… ooh, wouldn’t it be better if we just tweaked this and that… NO. No it would not be better.

I always thought that the abuse in Anne's early life was there if you read between the lines. Never felt it needed to be spelled out. I gave up on AWAE after a couple of episodes.
Megan forever.

I watched about 10 min and turned it off. The Megan Follows version is so, so dear to my heart that I just couldn’t do it. And everything I’ve read since about the changes they made and bizarre plot additions makes me glad I didn’t bother. Why mess with perfection? I re-read the books after having my second child and was impressed how faithfully the Megan Follows version had adapted the books. So glad to see so many Anne lovers on here 🙂

Slight derail but has anyone else read A Tangled Web? A sort of short family saga about the Darks and Penhallows?

There are definitely mentions of how hard Anne's early life was in Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley. In one of them one of her little girls asks her if she can imagine going to bed hungry and it comes up then.

I loved the books so much that I could never watch the Netflix series. I don't want anything to interfere with the idea of the characters that I have in my mind. The later books where she has children are my favourites.

I also have it a fair go then stopped watching. I didn't mind that the abuse was there - it's hinted at in the books (there's the bit in AOGG where Marilla is hearing Anne's story and asks Anne if the previous wlmen had been good to her, and later bits). But it was trying too hard to be modern and I went back to the books instead.

I wanted to love as I'm a huge fan (obviously) but I just couldn't get into it. Megan Follows and Jonathan Cromvie are my Anne and Gilbert.

Oh, and Matthew was all wrong.

I also spotted another TV / film adaptation somewhere recently - with Martin (?) Sheen. Watched about forty seconds of that before quitting - dreadful.

My set of books are the ones with Megan Follows on the cover - I think I'll be sticking with that!

@StartupRepair

The Anne with an E gets wilder and wilder. The writers at points give up on any pretence at 19th century language. DD and I nearly fell off the couch laughing when Gilbert says 'that's so messed up'.

And when he said, "Oh man..."

I watched a few episodes of this and have really disliked it. Their accents are all over the place! Matthew is broad Irish. I've just watched the episode where Ruby has to stay with Anne for a week. She wants to stay with Diana and there is no reason given as to why that couldn't happen. That doesn't make sense given how they viewed Anne.

I stopped watching quite early on, when those dodgy lodgers arrived at Green Gables.

I’ve just discovered that www.fadedpage.com/ has several out-of-copyright L M Montgomery ebooks

I thought as a Netflix tv show it was good (great cinematography for example) but as a modern telling of Anne of g g I didn’t like it. The romance with Gilbert was completely wrong ( don’t want to write any spoilers but if you watch it all you’ll understand) and you just can’t beat Jonathan Crombie and Megan Follows. I watched those films a million times.

I loved it. But I didn't like the books!

Hated it. Love the books.

This thread has just reminded me that Jonathan Crombie has died. Strangely enough I was walking back from the supermarket with my son about an hour ago and we were discussing him writing a book about trains. I told him about Gilbert telling Anne to “write about you know”.

I haven’t seen the Netflix version but read all the books when I was young and loved the Kevin Sullivan version.

Is the Megan Follows version available to watch anywhere?

@NotImpossible

Oh, and Matthew was all wrong.

I also spotted another TV / film adaptation somewhere recently - with Martin (?) Sheen. Watched about forty seconds of that before quitting - dreadful.

My set of books are the ones with Megan Follows on the cover - I think I'll be sticking with that!

Me too. This photo on the cover of Anne's House of Dreams made me so happy.

Thanks for starting this thread. I watched the first episode, in horror, a good while ago and I’ve been thinking of going back but I’ve realised I need to re read the books instead.

I have point blank refused to watch it.
Although I know Matthew is played by Jasper from RTA.