Tom's Midnight Garden Details

Just who writer/director Willard Carroll hoped would enjoy this fantasy is a mystery. The disappointing adaptation of Philippa Pearce's classic novel is unlikely to sustain the interest of children, while adults are unlikely to see it as anything other than a twee fable. Singer Anthony Way stars as a teenager who, during a summer stay with his childless aunt and uncle, discovers that, at midnight, the ugly area around the building turns into a magical garden inhabited by a lonely orphan, Hatty, from the previous century. Sadly, the scenes between the children are unengaging, while the adults, including James Wilby and Greta Scacchi, add no lustre to a pretty but overlong effort from a director who, as no stranger to children's films, should know better.

The clock struck thirteen. Tom (Way) snuck a slipper in the doorway of his uncle and aunt's apartment, scampered down... read more on Time Out