My What a Struggle Audrina
Just before she was born something happened to Audrina's (India Eisley - Nanny Cam) sister, who she was named after, and because of what happened to the "first Audrina" Audrina has been kept at home where she is home schooled and not allowed to communicate with those from the town unlike her sister Vera (Tess Atkins - Just in Time for Christmas), a tease and a temptress to young men. But as time passes Audrina begins to questions things and in need of more than her father, Damian (James Tupper - Playing for Keeps), can provide her, such as piano lessons. But as Damian relaxes his grip on protecting Audrina she meets handsome Arden (William Moseley - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) who she falls for.
Those who have spent some time on The Movie Scene will know I don't do novels and that can some times be a positive when it comes to movie adaptations of novels as then I can't be disappointed by what gets changed or left out. But sometimes it can also be a negative as those involved in making the movie seem to forget the audience may not know the story as well as they do. That is the issue with "My Sweet Audrina" as without having read the V.C. Andrews novel prior to watching it comes across as a disjointed, confusing mess which jumps around between characters a lot.
Now I actually believe it is intentional that "My Sweet Audrina" comes across as disjointed and messy as it wants to make the audience wonder what is going on; what happened to the original Audrina, why is Damian so protective of this Audrina and so on. But in just throwing these things at us and then in the end answering only some of the questions it poses it fails to draw you in because it fails to establish the characters. And as such no matter how nice India Eisley is as Audrina or how brooding James Tupper gets as her father, the fact is that it is impossible to connect to the characters and that makes it hard work to follow.
The question is of course, are the revelations you learn along the way going to be worth it when they start to arrive and in truth I don't think they are. Yes there are certainly some interesting character developments in "My Sweet Audrina" but because they tend to feel thrust upon the audience rather than built up to that they don't quite have the effect that was intended. To put it this way, because the character development and story development isn't there when someone turns up dead you kind of don't even care.
What this all boils down to is that "My Sweet Audrina" might be entertaining for those who have already read the V.C. Andrews novel it is adapted from but for me the attempt to create mystery by not establishing characters or story to start with made it hard work right from the word go.
