‘Secret Garden’ Is Slow Growing

Ponderous pacing proves to be a thorn in the side of “Back to the Secret Garden,” a stodgy Showtime film based on characters from “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Pleasingly acted but unrelentingly dull, the film is set in 1946 England, where we meet Lady Mary (Cherie Lunghi), the wife of a British ambassador who runs Mistlewaith Manor, an orphanage in Yorkshire. As Mary sets out for a trip to the U.S., she leaves the orphanage in the good hands of Martha (Joan Plowright), a firm but fair assistant.

While staying at an orphanage in Virginia, Mary meets Lizzie (Camilla Belle), a sweet young girl from Brooklyn with a love of roses and a green thumb. Initially, she’s a bit sullen and reclusive, but when the conversation turns to gardening, she literally blooms before our eyes.

As the result of an exchange program, Mary stays in Alexandria and Lizzie ends up in Yorkshire, where she spends the rest of the movie looking for the magic door to the garden, which is suddenly and mysteriously dying. Plowright, warm and reliable as ever, works well with the engaging, bright-eyed Belle, but the pacing by director Michael Tuchner is downright deadly, and the tedious teleplay by Joe Wiesenfeld is as lifeless as the garden.

Yes, it’s tough to find a good family film these days. “Back to the Secret Garden” should have fit the bill, but instead it withers on the vine.

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“Back to the Secret Garden” can be seen Sunday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. The network has rated it TV-G (suitable for all ages).