Petals on the Wind (2014)

Lack of good storyline.

I wanted to but couldn't!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

PETALS ON THE WIND is the follow up to the glossy TV movie adaptation of the Virginia Andrews novel FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC and I'm sure it was shot at the same time as it shares most of the cast members and has exactly the same kind of glossy look and feel. Unfortunately, with Ellen Burstyn off screen for large parts of the running time, it's a weaker film than its predecessor, which really wasn't all that hot to begin with.This story is set ten years after the events of the original and follows the lives of the siblings as they attempt to cope in the normal world. The focus of PETALS ON THE WIND is on relationship stuff, with copious screen time made up of depicting the siblings in their relationships with new partners and the struggles they face thanks to the psychological scarring they experienced in the first story. The acting is generally sub-par and unrealistic, no more so than Heather Graham whose increasingly shrill character has become more of a caricature. Burstyn is great but needed much more screen time, although the final scenes provide a fitting close to this two-part story. Inevitably, another sequel followed.

I got my hands on these novels when I was in early high school. My mother had owned them and I found them in a box in the basement and devoured them. As an adult, of course this series is a lot creepier than I though it was then. After watching the first in this series, Flowers in the Attic, and finding it to be not too far reaching from the original storyline, I had high hopes for the second, this installment, Petals on the Wind. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed.The fact that it opens up to Dr. Paul Scheffield's funeral was enough to send me digging through my bookshelves to make sure that I wasn't remembering everything wrong. Sure enough, Paul was just as big a part of that book as I had remembered. Not only did he take the three siblings in, he nearly married Cathy! Removing him from the movie's storyline did it a great injustice.Then there was the horrible job done of Cathy's career (in the books, she was going on world tours), Julian (they were married, he tried to destroy her feet, and after the accident - which Cathy was NOT in - he killed himself), Henny (she was mute!) Chris's turmoil (he was NEVER able to overcome Cathy - there was no Sarah in the books and that whole thing doesn't even fit with the story), Carrie's unhappiness (she was incredibly depressed during most of the book, and at the school, the girls left her bound, gagged, and blindfolded on a roof to die - she survived but broke her leg), and her death (Alex was not a minister to start with - Carrie had an ingrained fear of religion thanks to the grandmother), and Cathy's views of her mother (she did not try to reach out in love - she only wanted revenge in the books, and PLOTTED to steal her mother's husband). This wasn't just omitting parts of the story or changing little details to make a film watchable (think Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). They had to completely rewrite entire chunks to make their botched adaptation work.I have not watched If There Be Thorns or Seeds of Yesterday yet, though I will. Hopefully they fare better than this one. It's an okay movie overall for a Lifetime.Just don't go into Petals on the Wind thinking it will be anything like the original novel, or you'll be heavily disappointed.

In this sequel to "Flowers in the Attic" Cathy gets her revenge against her evil mother and grandmother. I just remember the actress who was Cathy was named Rose and I don't really remember the last name all that well! Cathy wants to have a normal life and she wants that for her older brother Chris and younger sister Carrie, but the horrible life she had at Foxworth Hall has her in its grip! Chris wants to move on with medical school and dating Sarah, the daughter of his instructor but he still has less than pure feelings for Cathy. Unfortunately for Sarah, he acts on those feelings and the relationship and potential marriage go to hell! Carrie, the sister who suffered the loss of her twin brother, Cory suffers in another way: she has not grown very tall, carries a doll around, and is teased mercilessly by the snobby girls at the boarding school she attends. Cathy is also abused by Julian, the son of her ballet instructor. She stays with him because she thinks he can make her a big star and the fact that she is carrying his unborn son is another factor. He dies later in a car crash. Into all of this, Corinne comes back as Bart Winslow's wife. Bart wants to have kids with her, but Corinne can never have children. Heather Graham brings her A-game with Corinne's selfishness and shallowness. Corinne hates caring for the scary grandmother of the kids who has had a stroke and is basically helpless. Ellen Burstyn is great as the grandmother who despite the stroke knows the evil things Corinne has done to her children and she keeps reminding her daughter of the fact. Corinne's evil and greed makes her deny poor Carrie and this drives the girl to eat arsenic laced donuts in the same way Cory did. This kills Carrie and Cathy has her revenge at last! She has an affair with Bart Winslow and conceives his child. She almost assaults the grandmother and comes out at Bart and Corinne's Christmas Party to tell the guests what Corinne did to her kids. The grandmother is of no help to her daughter and in the bedroom, she shows Corinne the trunk with little Cory's rotting corpse inside. This drives Corinne out of her tree and she thinks Chris her son is her husband. She sets fire to the house, killing her mother and Bart. At the end of the movie, the family of Chris and Cathy which includes 2 sons is now living in California under the name Dollanganger. The neighbors think they are so perfect and Corinne is locked up an insane asylum. This movie like the book is a guilty pleasure and all the characters were very good!

Petals on the WindThe best way to get revenge on a bad parent is to abuse them when they get senile.However the siblings in this drama have chosen to attack much earlier.A decade after their mother (Heather Graham) and grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) held them captive in the attic of Foxworth Hall, the surviving Dollanganger children: Cathy (Rose McIver), Chris (Wyatt Nash) and Carrie (Bailey Buntain), mourn the death of their adopted father.With a forbidden fire still burning for each other, Chris and Cathy unwillingly take-on unrelated lovers as they pursue careers in medicine and ballet, respectively.But a failed encounter with their estranged mother sets off a scheme to spoil her and her new husband's life. Based on the sequel to Flowers in the Attic, this latest installment in the Dollanganger series is as tawdry, melodramatic and campy as its predecessor. Furthermore, the best revenge an incestuous couple can get on their mother is having her baby-sit her two-headed grandchild. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca