I'm not sure why anyone would want to watch this extremely unpleasant British drama, but so be it. British actress Helena B.C., who often takes on offbeat roles, plays a children's author named Enid Blyton. Blyton suffers from bipolar disorder, likely brought on by a miserable childhood in which her mother drove away her father. Blyton initially plans to be a teacher but finds she has a knack for writing about her favorite childhood fantasies, which clearly were meant to transport her out of her sad childhood. She marries her publisher, whom she eventually drives away, repeating the sins of her mother, and marries a much older man, clearly a father figure. For a children's author, she isn't much on children In fact, she can't stand her own children and eventually drives them away as well. When she finds herself preggers by her second husband, she finds a way to get rid of that child as well. Eventually, she lapses into full blown dementia and is reported to have died in the late 1960s. I thought at first she was a fictional character, but apparently there was a real Enid Blyton, who apparently was all the rage in Britain at one time. She apparently never caught on in the U.S. like her contemporaries, Enid Bagnold and Beatrix Potter. It may be that her writing was not up to theirs or that it didn't translate well with the American audience. As a writer with three daughters, I have spent countless hour in libraries and bookstores and never once come across her name. By the way, the real Enid Blyton was horse-faced, which makes me wonder why the filmmakers chose the somewhat attractive B.C. to play her. Nicely photographed and produced, but horribly unpleasant. Unless you like them that way, stay away. B.C. is of course marvelous as the mentally disturbed Blyton. She literally sinks her teeth into the role.
