Anne Of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008)

In 1945, a novelist and playwright (Barbara Hershey) reflects upon her troubled life after her mother's (Natalie Radford) death and her father's (Ben Carlson) abandonment. Produced, written and directed by Kevin Sullivan, this film is not based on any of the ANNE novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery but an original screenplay based on the several television adaptations of Montgomery's ANNE OF GREEN GABLES book done by Sullivan. This was the fourth entry. The 1945 wrap around story isn't very interesting and the childhood sequences echo just about every suffering orphan tale you've ever read including JANE EYRE, OLIVER TWIST, POLLYANNA and LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE. This Anne isn't very appealing and indeed, she's quite often annoying. I'm not a fan of the Montgomery books so I'm not as outraged by the apparent mutilation of the Anne Shirley story. Perhaps Mr. Sullivan went to the well once too often. It all just seems so contrived. Outside of Shirley MacLaine as the wealthy widow who takes Anne in, the acting is ineffectual. With Rachel Blanchard and Hannah Endicott Douglas.