Content Warning: Spoilers, discussion of abuse and mental health.
I had resisted clicking on the Netflix thumbnail for this show for a while. While I have read at least the first novel, it was a long time ago and it didn’t make a huge impression on me. I remember the basic story, but I didn’t have any real attachment to the characters or world they were in. And it needs to be said that Anne With An “E” is a terrible name. Just call it Anne Of Green Gables, you doinks.
Anyway, with the third season being greenlit, Netflix had yet again pushed the freckled face of Anne Shirley(-Cuthburt) to the top of my suggested list just at a time when I needed a new thing. And so I clicked.
First, the opening credits feel like someone spying on my brain, creating something that would obviously appeal to me. So I was immediately interested. It’s almost offensive how beautiful this is?
But you aren’t given much time to soak in that beauty, as by minute 4 of the first episode our titular character is having a PTSD flashback triggered by a crying baby, a loud smack is heard as we’re shown a flashback of her abuse at the hands of her previous “family”. And by minute 19 another one, this time we’re shown Anne being beaten by a man so severely that he has a heart attack and dies while doing it.
And so by 30 minutes in, Anne is crying and I’m crying and I’m wondering what the heck I have gotten myself into and why won’t anyone give this poor girl a hug oh my god us orphans just want to be loved by someone, anyone, the world is so cruel, aaaaaah…
So I can imagine people who were much more attached to the lighter notes of the original novels might be a bit perplexed or entirely put off by the harshness of this version. The writers go to great lengths to make Anne’s life (and the lives of many around her) as unfair and uncaring as the real world can be. And I understand how wanting to watch an uplifting story about a plucky Canadian orphan would be hampered by the relentlessness of reality represented in these first two seasons.
But I still like it. A lot. The cast really sells it, along with the beautiful direction both inside the sets and out in the gorgeous Canadian landscapes. Viewers in it for the historical fiction angle won’t be let down with the visuals, costumes, or some of the stories touched on, but you could know nothing about the time period or the source material and still enjoy it.
It’s not a perfect show. Just as it can dip into bleak darkness with Anne’s powerful fits of crying happening about every 20 minutes, there’s also the sickly- sweet sentimental peaks that can hover around maudlin. I would compare it to Call The Midwife, where I’ll occasionally skip through storylines, scenes or characters that I find particularly grating or sappy even though I generally enjoy the show. (Or like Harlots where I skip through all the rape.)
There is something extremely relatable about this Anne. Maybe you have to have been through a particular amount or type of awfulness to want to watch through it. But her personality being both in spite of and because of a past that she barely made it out alive from is the perfect context for this story. (Okay, maybe the flashback scene where she’s locked in a basement room or something holding a dead mouse and crying over it after she was tortured with it is maybe a bit much.) (Also, Matthew almost committing suicide with a gun he keeps in the house was a lot.)
” Different isn’t bad; it’s just not the same.”
― Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, Anne With An “E”
I don’t think this will be in my regular rotation of shows I watch in repeat, but I’m glad I watched it and will most likely watch the third season as well.
2020 Update: Season 3 had a Native American storyline, while it was not perfect by any means, good on them for telling a story about what actually happened to Native people at this time. Unfortunately it will not get a conclusion as the show has been cancelled.
As an orphan, I am hurt and offended.
