Just finished book around noon today, and just finished this TV movie few hours afterwards.

They had two hours to condense a lengthy novel. I think they did a decent job, strayed pretty far from the book, but decent nonetheless. I'm very disappointed they left out several characters, and reduced others to footnotes, but again only two hours.

I think what I appreciated most was they screenwriter/director gave us some dialogue which might (or might not) have been exactly what Rosamunde was thinking when she wrote the book. Their interpretation is what I enjoyed most.

Moving on to the 2006 version now.

The movie is nowhere as good as the book. They took out all of the things that made the book so emotional and amazing. Not a great rewrite at all.

Otherwise Angela Lansbury is always great to watch.

I was surprised at the extraordinary quality of the story and the characters that were strongly depicted in this movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and found it to be very moving. Strongly recommend viewing this for a realistic portrayal of family dynamics. James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 3/28/2021.