ALL THAT GLITTERS/V.C.ANDREWS’ ALL THAT GLITTERS
US, 2021, 87 minutes, Colour.
Raechelle Banno, Sam Duke, Ty Wood, Karina Banno, Chad Willet, Sage Lindaer Todd Thomson, Kristian Alfonso.
Directed by Michael Robison.
Quotes from fans on the IMDb hit the nail on the head, so to speak: Delicious Melodrama rolls on: Hogwash, tripe and guff continue to enthral. Absolutely wonderful escapism which was exactly what I was looking for.
And another with a critique eye: The main problem with this movie, and all the VC Andrews movies, is they just go from scene to scene. Plot point to plot point, so for example, everything is fine...then someone is dead...or everything is fine and then there's the whiplash of another secret. And that's on top of them not really covering the books in the first place. So this robs the movies of any sort of depth.
This is the third in the Landry series from V.C.Andrews; novels, in fact one of the very many written by Andrew Needham in using Virginia Andrews’ name. The first film is Ruby, then Pearl in the Mist and, then, The Hidden Jewel.
The settings are Louisiana, some time in the Bayous, a lot more time in lavish mansions. The setting is the early 1960s. As the blogger noted, the screenplay is just go from point to point, new crisis continually arising, soap opera at its most energetic.
There are some jaw-breaking incidents in this part of the story. While Ruby has married her half-brother, Paul (generally a secret) to have a father for her baby, Pearl, they agree that the relationship be platonic but, on one occasion, it isn’t. Ruby is continually persecuted by her arrogant (beyond belief?) twin sister, Gisele. And, once again, (they are played by the Australian twins, Raechelle Banno and Karen Banno).
Beau, the father of Pearl, returns from France where he had been engaged, wanting access to Pearl, Paul persuaded to agree to a preposterous charade which, of course, will be unmasked most dramatically, that Ruby impersonate Gisele who has married Beau, and care for the baby. Gisele has developed a severe malaria and is in coma, so that Ruby is then, setting up house, has to impersonate the arrogant Gisele (which she finds, at times, she enjoys).
There are various threats of revelation, especially by Paul’s mother and Ruby’s stepfather who has been excluded from his wife’s will. Ruby finds that she can blackmail back again!
However, Gisele dies, arguments about presence of the funeral, Paul upset, mentally unbalanced, treating the dying Gisele as if she were Ruby… And then, depressed, kills himself.
Which is an opportunity for Paul’s mother to claim Pearl as her granddaughter and Ruby/Gisele unfit to bring up the baby. At last, Ruby decides to tell the truth and the matter goes to court, Paul’s mother vindictively lying. Ruby is supported by her friend Abby, the mixed-race fellow student from the previous film, and decides to expose the half-brother situation, calling Paul’s father to the stand who admits all the truth.
Four years later, Beau and Ruby and Pearl altogether, Ruby pregnant – but Pearl opening Ruby’s jewellery box to her mother’s upset. The next episode is called The Hidden Jewel.
