THE HIDDEN JEWEL VC ANDREWS THE HIDDEN JEWEL
US, 2021, 88 minutes, Colour.
Raechelle Banno, Jennifer Laporte, Evan Roderick, Ty Wood, Sam Duke, Crystal Fox.
Directed by Michael Robison.
This is the fourth feature episode in the Landry Family series, based on the novels by VC Andrews, written by Andrew Neiderman in her name. He serves as a consultant for the film.
This is not a stand-alone film. It must be seen in the context of the whole narrative, bringing it to a conclusion. However, while there is a lot of melodrama, as in the other stories, this one seems highly contrived (not that the others weren’t). But, this time, it seems more obvious.
We are familiar with the two central characters, Ruby and Beau. And, while there are a few characters from the earlier films, the main ones are new. In fact, All That Glitters has Ruby and Beau together, some deaths along the way. They have their daughter, Pearl, the subject of the second in the series, Pearl in the Mist and now Ruby is pregnant again. We have been in the 1960s.
This film is set in 1982. Pearl is now 18, graduating, intending to be a doctor Ruby and Beau also have twin sons. What could happen?
The film opens with Pearl having a nightmare, seeing Paul who had drowned, Ruby’s half brother, their loving each other, but no future in their union, Paul despairing and killing himself. Paul’s mother (not exactly his mother) appears still grieving, vengeful against Ruby.
At Pearl’s graduation party, she intends to give her virginity to a boyfriend but hesitates, he proving himself instantly a cad. Later, a young Cajun man, John, will help Ruby in her search for her mother who, fearing the worst, that she is cursed, returns to the bayous to face her past.
In the first film, voodoo themes were introduced, Ruby and her maid in the house going to Mama Dede for rituals – and the curse affecting Ruby’s twin sister, the obnoxiously arrogant and self-centred Giselle (who might have been welcome in this one to liven up action!). The maid in the house is now sick, dying, Ruby going to visit Mama Dede, more rituals for Ruby to understand her past, including a portrait of Paul that she has painted.
There is also a family complication and one of the twins is bitten by a snake and dies, the other twin falling into a fever, seemingly also a victim of the curse, whose spirit must assert itself that he come to conscious again or die.
Then there is another complication, a character from the first film, Buster, the man to whom Ruby’s alcoholic grandfather sells her, feigns sympathy, viewers Ruby to his cabin and intends to cage her. But, very quickly, she shows enterprise, turns the table, puts in in the cage and calls the police.
As regards romance, she and John consummate their love – and, with Ruby recovered, the twin recovering, everybody together, months passing and Ruby pursuing her medical studies as well as renovating the house, there is no more, at least at this stage, in the Landry family saga.
