"Anne with an E"

I was a voracious reader in school but never delved into “Anne of Green Gables”.  It was described to me as being about an orphan girl growing up on a farm in Newfoundland.  Kind of a “Little House on the Prairie” from Canada.  My sense was that it would be treacly and bucolic and so I skipped it for darker fare.  My understanding is that this Netflix series is a re-imagining which doesn’t follow the books whole-heartedly but it has intrigued me and I’m thinking about going back and reading the books now.

This streaming series wasn’t instant love.  In the first two episodes Anne drove me more than a little crazy.  She’s emotional, damaged, over-the-top, insecure, obnoxious, doesn’t listen, she’s righteous, is self-obsessed … basically your typical teen.  But I recognized myself in her.  The girl who can’t trust that she is loved, the girl who is accused of being overly dramatic because she uses her fantastical imagination to survive difficult times.  Maybe I didn’t like seeing so much of myself.  I hung in there.  In successive episodes Anne tones down, just a bit.  She continues to make big mistakes, huge mistakes, but she grows from each one of them.  Her circle grows and begins to include people who question their position in life, often because of Anne’s presence in their world.  On a remote Canadian island in the 19^th century you have women who resist becoming wives and wives only, a privileged young man who comes to see a black man as his brother, and lots (and lots) of gay stuff.  I was shocked.  This wasn’t bucolic, it was churning, with seething frustrations and struggles in the face of tradition and repression.  And it is SO gay.  I mean, if someone had told me that I probably would have read the books!

But seriously, I loved the series more and more with every passing episode and managed to binge it all in under two weeks.  Every single character, every one, has depths and dimensions you don’t see coming.  It’s really quite well-done.  And the shots of Newfoundland, often in the winter, are breathtaking.  Brava, Anne!  To the rebel in all of us.