Wildflower

[Joy H.]

Last night I streamed "Wildflower" from Netflix.
The film was adapted from the book, Alice (1988), by Sara Flanigan.
"Wildflower" (TV 1991)
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Wil...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103266/
"An abused and partially deaf [and epileptic] girl is helped back into society by two resourceful children."

The cast included Reese Witherspoon and Patricia Arquette, both very young at the time. Beau Bridges played Witherspoon's father. Patricia Arquette played the abused girl. (Her real-life grandfather was Cliff Arquette.) William McNamara played Withspoon's brother. I don't remember ever seeing him before.

This was a very touching story and was well-acted. It kept me interested throughout. I had never seen such a young Reese Witherspoon. She was delightful. What a great smile!

I gave it only 3 stars out of 5 because it was hard to believe the way the deaf, epileptic girl was kept in filthy conditions in an old broken-down shack in the yard. The whole story seemed a bit extreme to me even though it was interesting and had some poignant scenes.

[Anna Kay]

I love that book and the movie was fairly faithful to it. But like you said, kind of difficult to believe that could happen. Great cast though! :)

[Joy H.]

Anna, I had never heard of the book or the movie before this. In fact, I had to do a little digging around to find out the name of the book (_Alice_) which the movie ("Wildflower") was adapted from. Now I can't remember how I found out. :)

PS-Of course, Alice was the name of the abused girl.

[Anna Kay]

Joy H. wrote: "Anna, I had never heard of the book or the movie before this. In fact, I had to do a little digging around to find out the name of the book (_Alice_) which the movie ("Wildflower") was adapted from..."

I read the book when I was about 10 years old, before my local library weeded the collection of many older books to make room for new. For years I couldn't remember what the author's name was or find the book - then I saw the film. Both are pretty good :)

[Joy H.]

Anna, it must have felt good to see that the book had been made into a film... and to once again remember the author. The GR member reviews also say they read the book when they were children. Of course the book wasn't around when I was a kid. Instead, I read Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Or it might have been Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was one of those books which first turned me on to reading. They were both adapted into films as well.