the plot line
The biggest controversy started when the basic storyline was revealed in early 1998. Many ardent Lucy Maud Montgomery fans were outraged at it. They were expecting something based on Anne's House of Dreams or Rilla of Ingleside.The movie begins with Anne returning to Avonlea for the first time since Marilla's death (ref: the Avonlea episode "Old Friends, Old Wounds") after spending several years in Halifax teaching. Diana is the first to greet her after coming home. She and Fred inherited her Aunt Josephine's fortune, and own a huge mansion in the outskirts of Avonlea. They drive toward her house, but Anne decides to visit Green Gables for a minute. She shows up to find it in tatters. Mr. Harrison, who had rented out the house (remember: Rachel Lynde moved out to live with Hetty King during the sixth season of Avonlea), didn't keep it up well and let it fall apart. Anne is devastated.
She then returns to Diana's mansion where she would stay during the summer. Anne quickly finds out that all doesn't seem to be well with Diana and Fred Wright. Although they are extremely wealthy, and Fred has a great job at the bank, Fred doesn't seem to be happy, and Diana doesn't understand why. Yet during all this, Anne can't wait to see Gilbert--to whom she has long been engaged--again.
He finally returns home after interning at a hospital in New York and asks Anne to go to New York with him because he has found a new position as a surgeon there, and he can help her get a job at a publishing company, so she can continue to write. She reluctantly agrees and takes a job as a junior editor at a small publishing house for its star writer, Jack Garrison. One day, Jack accidentally picks up her manuscript by mistake and offers to edit it for her; the deal would turn into a co-authorship. Unfortunately, it wouldn't happen; the book, entitled Kindred Spirits, was published solely in Jack's name, leaving Anne furious with the publishers and with Jack.
Meanwhile, at the hospital, Gil is having problems of his own. The chief of surgery is forcing him to become a sensationalistic doctor and not what Gil's vision of a doctor was. He refuses to continue to practice in that hospital, and he and Anne return home to restore Green Gables and to marry.
As they return to Avonlea for the second time, both Gilbert and Fred feel the pressure to enlist, with the war escalating in Europe. Both eventually give in and, after a brief wedding ceremony, Gil is shipped off to Europe as a doctor to treat the wounded soldiers. Anne sends him countless letters while she is away, but all are eventually returned, and it is discovered that he is missing in action.
Anne later reunites with her other former surrogate mother Rachel Lynde, who is shaken by the fact that Davey has enlisted, plus the fact that some of Anne's old schoolmates--Charlie Sloane and Moody Spurgeon (who, by this time, is now husband to Josie Pye)--were killed in action, and Fred and Gil are missing. Anne decides that the best thing to do is to go to Europe and look for Gilbert herself. She entrusts Green Gables to Diana, who has since sold her mansion and was originally going to move in with her mother.
On the way to the battlefields in France, Anne reunites with Jack Garrison, now a war correspondent for the London Telegraph. He is with a young French woman named Colette, and her baby Dominic. After Jack disappears to get more information about the war efforts and to help end the war, Colette dies in a bombing of a make-shift hospital for the wounded, and Anne promises to look after Dominic. Anne, by mere Providence, meets up with Fred again after the wounded soldiers have been moved elsewhere. He was shot in the right arm, which was eventually cut off to prevent more infection. They move in to Jack's apartment in London, where she would earn more money to continue to search for Gil. She gets a job at the Telegraph as an assistant columnist for Maude Montrose, a New York socialite who is part of an underground effort to end the war. Both are employed by Fergus Keegan, editor of the paper who is after Jack. After several months in London, Anne leaves the Telegraph with Maude's help and returns to the front with Dominic to continue searching for Gil. (Meanwhile, with the help of a young couple who lived in the same building as Anne and Fred did, Fred returns home to Avonlea.)
comments and thoughts
Part one of the film was very enjoyable, yet I felt part two played more like an Avonlea film noir (with Anne as the heroine, of course). It also seemed like the "Anne-ish" feeling was gone. Granted, like Happy Christmas, Miss King, this took place in one of history's darkest times, but the spirit of Anne wasn't there like it was in the first two movies.There were several inconsistencies between Anne 3 and Road to Avonlea. In an early episode of Avonlea, it is mentioned that Marilla is visiting Anne to help with a sick child. In "Old Friends, Old Wounds," Gilbert returns for Marilla's funeral and tells everyone that Anne couldn't attend because she was sick, and he adds, "One of the little ones had it first." Plus, there are many mentions that it has been five years since Anne and Gil first became engaged. In the second Anne film, during the scene where Anne reads the review of her class's play, the paper is dated, "November 26, 1902." The film ended in the late summer of 1903; five years after that would make the year 1908, not 1915 (when Anne 3 starts). All these events imply that Anne and Gilbert were married way before the middle of World War I. Yet, when we see Anne 3, we are let on that they had a long engagement; they were never married and never had any children. Granted, both Road to Avonlea and Anne 2 were done long before there were thoughts of a third Anne film, but it would've been great to see more consistency.
There were also some notable absences--Minnie May Barry, Jane Andrews-Ellis (if you remember her fiancé from the second Anne film), John Barry (Diana's father). Rachel's fifteen seconds in the spotlight were too short (Rachel was supposed to appear at the wedding, but scheduling conflicts didn't allow Patricia Hamilton to be present for the filming).
The other item that bugged many people was that Anne was very touchy-feely with Jack even after she was married. I think what we all need to keep in mind here is that Anne wasn't a "strict Victorian" woman, and that her family consisted of everyone she ever met. This, in some way or another, would include Jack.
A great moment is that Josie and Anne finally come to some sort of "truce." I don't believe they'd ever be "kindred spirits," but at least it's good to know there are no longer feelings of animosity between them. Another great moment is in the latter part of the film, where Gil tells Anne that he would choose a different memory of her every day, and play it over and over in his mind...until everything was as he remembered it.
Another fun part was looking for anything "recycled." Anne has a dream, and one of the scenes in it is from Happy Christmas, Miss King, where Felix and Elbert's regimen are advancing (just before Elbert is shot). Of course the uniforms from HCMK were also reused, as well as several of the old RTA props (Felicity's blanket from "Felicity's Perfect Beau" comes to mind).
Although the movie is not based on the last four Anne novels (Anne's House of Dreams through Rilla of Ingleside), there are hints of Rilla through the film. Both brought a woman into the middle of the war; they both detailed what it was like for the women to live through such a horrible time.
my final answer
My final rating of Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story is a three out of five. When you watch it, watch with an open mind; don't assume you will not enjoy it just because it's not based on Anne's House of Dreams or Rilla of Ingleside.Review ©2000 by Shelly T.