Friday, February 10, 2017

My Weekend Anne

I won’t lie, I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, OMG, a new Anne of Green Gables. If you have been here for any length of time you know Anne Shirley is one of my favorite characters, period. I remain convinced Anne and Diana were bosom friends with benefits. I have read, and this is not being hyperbolic, everything L.M. Montgomery has ever written. Fine, everything she published in the United States that I could get my hands on about Anne and Avonlea and Emily and Pat and even “The Story Girl.” Hell, I made my family vacation on Prince Edward Island. Megan Follows was one of my first crushes so interviewing her was one of the highlights of my professional life.

So I come at the new Netflix adaptation of “Anne of Green Gables” with a mixture of hope and dread and nervous excitement. Will it be as good? What does “grittier” mean? So now we see our first glimpse of our new Anne in action and I’m… I don’t know. She certainly looks the part from the books. A thin, small face with all those freckles and red hair. She looks decidedly more gawky than Megan, which isn’t bad necessarily.

My only real complaint right now. That weak-ass slate slap. Dude, Anne SMASHES her slate over Gilbert’s head when he calls her “carrots.” There’s no tepid slap. Crush that thing, girl.

So, what do you think. There’s really not enough here to say anything definitively. Though, I feel pretty safe in saying that no matter what, this new adaptation has to be better than that weak-ass PBS version with Martin Sheen terribly miscast as Matthew. Let us never speak of that version ever again. Happy weekend, all.

3 comments:

Carmen SanDiego said...

I will confess that I have never seen anything related to Anne of green gables but after seeing you talking about it for so many years I am curious to check out this adaptation

Anonymous said...

Carmen Ive never enjoyed PBS so I probably wont enjoy this reincarnation.

Shasta said...

I'm partway through the first episode and I have to say that I'm utterly smitten!
Anyone comparing it to the Megan Follows series might be disappointed because that cast is so spectacular, but honestly, so is this one. Marilla looks just as described in the books and Anne is gawky and endearing and lovely. Her raptures have so much more depth given the darkness they show from her past. Dang! Poor Anne!
The visuals are also just beautiful. PEI looks stunning. And Green Gablez is gorgeous in an understated way.
I really recommend the series and I'm glad it'll be on Netflix and not just the CBC. It's fantastic :)