Having read about Henry Cook and his "subtropical garden," the setting for "The Assam Garden," I was really eager to locate a copy of this movie. However once viewed I was sadly disappointed. Deborah Kerr does a good job of representing an English woman who was a 'somebody' in India, the wife of a tea plantation manager, but in England is, essentially, a 'nobody' -- a relic of a forgotten time, and not a particularly sympathetic one at that. Her reluctance to adjust to the changing times reminds me of many of the older people I knew growing up. Madhur Jaffrey, on the other hand, turns in a rather wooden performance. I have seen her work in other films and so I can only assume that either the script or the directing, or perhaps both, are to blame here. To make my point, I would refer to the scene where Helen has fallen off the ladder and is lying unconscious on the ground. Ruxmani approaches as if nothing in particular had happened, which made the entire scene rather irrelevant.
The last scene of the movie was totally out of character, and seemed like something thrown together after the end of a long day when everyone's creativity was exhausted.
Apparently this was a made-for-TV movie, which explains the production values -- or lack thereof. The movie is not entirely awful, and overall the tale of what happened to people after the Raj makes for an interesting story. Perhaps it's a matter of point of view, but I would not compare "The Assam Garden" to "A Passage to India." Instead it reminded me more of "Staying On," the follow-up to "The Jewel In The Crown." I can easily imagine Helen having tea on the porch with Lucy Smalley, reminiscing on 'the good old days' which were probably not as good as either of them remember.
Oh, one last nit-picky note: despite what Helen tells Mr. Philpot from the garden society, the banana plants shown in the movie were NOT Musa ensete (now more correctly called Ensete ventricosum), which is a quite distinctive plant, but more likely Musa basjoo or some other more commonly found nursery banana.
The last scene of the movie was totally out of character, and seemed like something thrown together after the end of a long day when everyone's creativity was exhausted.
Apparently this was a made-for-TV movie, which explains the production values -- or lack thereof. The movie is not entirely awful, and overall the tale of what happened to people after the Raj makes for an interesting story. Perhaps it's a matter of point of view, but I would not compare "The Assam Garden" to "A Passage to India." Instead it reminded me more of "Staying On," the follow-up to "The Jewel In The Crown." I can easily imagine Helen having tea on the porch with Lucy Smalley, reminiscing on 'the good old days' which were probably not as good as either of them remember.
Oh, one last nit-picky note: despite what Helen tells Mr. Philpot from the garden society, the banana plants shown in the movie were NOT Musa ensete (now more correctly called Ensete ventricosum), which is a quite distinctive plant, but more likely Musa basjoo or some other more commonly found nursery banana.