You could speak about an architecture-film like the movies of Peter Greenaway. The personality-change of meneer Chrome (a boyish Ewan McGregor) is developed in the movie in a way that it is the backbone of the story but one asks himself if this is not poor for a movie. The 18th century with its superstitions and snuff-powder is the real background of the movie and the garden is in fact the antagonist. Juliana (Greta Scacchi) is not a real person, she seems to be like the statues of the garden. One wonders why she and Thea/Anna, her daughter (Carmen Chaplin) are attracted to meneer Chrome. Thomas Smithers (Pete Postletwaite) is a highly moral person full of strange fantasies, you cannot think of such a person in real life. Tim Rose Price should be aware that producing such a movie demands other skills than writing it.

This watchable, derivative, turn-of-the-century piece has a good cast, which could perform this kind of script in their sleep. You can't help but think of THE DRAUGHTMAN'S CONTRACT and ANGEL AND INSECTS all the while you watch it. There's no harm in enjoying this sumptuous film, but remember it's all been done before and better. I'd say Scacchi is the standout here.

This story is about a young, Dutch landscaper, Meneer Chrome (Ewan McGregor), who plans to create an extravagant garden for Thomas Smithers and his wife (Pete Postlethwaite and Greta Scacchi). His real plan or the real motive of this garden is to bankrupt Smithers so the not-so nice Fitzmaurice (Richard E. Grant) can seduce Smithers's wife. But Chrome begins having second thoughts about completing the plan after he becomes fascinated by Smithers's daughter Thea (Carmen Chaplin). I think people who have criticized this movie are far too harsh. I found it to have an excellent story with a talented cast. The performance that I felt most touched by was Carmen Chaplin's. Her struggle to find disorder in a world that wants to have order is an interesting element to the story. What I didn't like was the movie's pacing. I felt the message the movie was conveying that you can not control nature. I think this theme would have been better expressed in a short story or a short movie, not a feature length film. A part from that, I can sit through the hour and fifty minutes and feel glad that I saw this movie.

What seems really incredible in that movie is that the talented Philippe Rousselot chose its screenplay to shoot his first movie as director. From the beginning of the movie, it is clear that the plot displays some striking similitudes with the masterpiece of Peter Greenaway, "The draughtsman's contract". Therefore, Rousselot spent his time trying to make his own movie look different, but the result is sadly bad. The cinematography of the movie is beautiful, but there is no valuable plot and the characters have no existence. This is definitely a failure.