The latest adaptation of Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables has oddly been retitled Anne With an E (Netflix). The show debuts on the streaming service after airing on Canadian network CBC-TV, where it was known as just Anne.
Presumably, Netflix were trying to infuse the name with more contemporary, alluring flavour. They needn’t have bothered. The show’s first two episodes revel in its old-fashioned, period-drama homeliness.
The title character in question is Anne Shirley (Amybeth McNulty), an orphaned girl who has suffered all the cruelties young orphans in period pieces tend to endure. A lifetime of being beaten down – mentally and physically – has sharpened the 13-year-old’s imagination to a level that it might almost qualify as a superpower. “I like imagining better than remembering,” she tells a stranger on a train. “Why are the worst memories the most insistent?”
The train takes Anne to Marilla (Geraldine James) and Matthew Cuthbert (RH Thomson), an aging sister and brother living in late 1890s Prince Edward Island, Canada. The siblings have made the not-small decision to adopt an orphan. To help out on their farm, is what they tell themselves. Beneath Matthew’s quiet poise and Marilla’s steely eyes, you suspect there’s more to it than that.
The problem is, Marilla and Matthew had sought to adopt a boy. The mix-up leaves Anne devastated – the tantalising prospect of a good home snatch away from her. Curiously drawn to this outspoken, Jane Eyre-quoting chatterbox, the couple decide to trial the living situation.
“Wouldn’t it be lovely to be a blossom,” emotes Anne. “Yesterday you wanted to be a seagull,” Marilla sarcastically claps back.
Inspired casting
Pieces that demand a child or young teen actor at their centre thrive or perish on casting. Fortunately, McNulty is wonderful in the demanding role. The Irish-Canadian actor delivers her dialogue with an unusual rhythm, cutting together stage school-style brashness, fierce loquacity and emotional authenticity. In doing so, McNulty cuts right into Anne’s nucleus – a dramatic soul who uses bombast to cover up the scars.
On the other side of the spectrum are the elders. The first two instalments of the show don’t engage with their past as it does with Anne’s via flashbacks, but there’s something intangible bubbling under the surface. While Anne plasters over her lacerations with meandering jabber, Marilla may well be using silence to cover hers.
With its playful dialogue and quaint setting, Anne With an E is a lot of fun. But it’s also about the weight of life and how it can press down on us so brutally, regardless of how old you are.
- Anne With an E is available to view on Netflix from Friday, May 12th
