everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

After watching the "E. Nesbit" episode from "The Edwardians" I realised why her books ("The Railway Children", "The Enchanted Castle" etc) have become classics enjoyed by children and adults alike - it is because she truly loved children and could put herself into their world. Enid Blyton as portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter was a harpy - a person who could write formularized children's books that appealed to only the young but had no empathy with her own!!I watched this as a couple of friends had recommended it and was completely absorbed in the whole strange story of Enid Blyton's life - and Helena Bonham Carter can take full credit for this. I think the signs were there from the start, having a father who is the apple of your eye desert you, then trying unsuccessfully to escape from a mother, who from the couple of scenes she had, was not going to sugar coat life - here was a girl who wanted to escape reality.From the film she didn't seem to struggle for recognition with her writing, once she started she married her publisher who then began to drink heavily when he realised she was completely self absorbed and only thought of herself and her "little friends" - he and the kids could go to Hell!! One of her children, Imogen Pollock wrote a book about what having Enid Blyton for a mother was really like, called "A Childhood at Green Hedges" and I am sure the film must have borrowed heavily from this. The film opens with an explosive Enid answering a charge from the B.B.C. that her books are not her own but as the film unfolds it's clear that she has written every single word, she doesn't have time for anything else, she certainly wouldn't win "Mother of the Year"!! Enid is so full of love and gratitude to her fans, her "little friends", but as exasperated Hugh says "if they knew you they wouldn't like you" - she takes them on outings, invites them to parties where they can eat as much red jelly as they like but up at the top of the shadowy stairs it seems like the only children not having any treats are her own!! Worse is to come when Hugh goes to war, Enid takes up with Kenneth Walker (Denis Lawson) and he returns to find Enid about to divorce him. He shoulders all the blame for the privilege of seeing his daughters whenever he likes but with the divorce finalised, Enid reneges on her promise and also is the means of him never being able to work in publishing again!! Her new husband is just as happy to shield her from life's brutal facts. One scene where the father comes home on leave and the little girls are eager to show him their rabbits - ""There were two but Mummy and Uncle Ken ate one". Another is when Enid puts a little Noddy doll in pride of place on a table and moves her family photos to the very back and in the most telling (for me) Enid, as a new mother, just staring and staring at her little baby screaming, not having the least inclination to pick her up or soothe her, wanting desperately to get back to the books for her little friends.Life can't always be put on hold and when her brother Carey reappears in her life (she had told everybody that her family had died) to tell her that her mother had just died and why had she forsaken them, plus a few shocking truths about her beloved father, Enid suffers a complete breakdown which may have led to the dementia that killed her.Pretty gripping stuff if you only know Enid Blyton as the author of Noddy, The Magic Faraway Tree, The Secret Seven and the Famous Five!!!

This film promulgates the stories spread about that Enid Blyton was a horrible person and a cold mother. This is not factual. If you read Barbara Stoney's very accurate biography - "Enid Blyton, The Biography" with a foreword written by Miss Blyton's own daughter Gillian - you will see that she adored her children and loved both her first and second husbands. She contributed enormous amounts of teaching aids to the teachers and children of the twentieth century, and should be remembered with love and admiration. Do not take this cinematic telling of her life as factual. It isn't. In her daughter's own words - "I was very close to my mother, and talked with her freely from early childhood." which disputes the notion of her having been a cold mother. I have read her biography, and whilst this film captures the atmosphere of the time, it does not capture the true events.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to watch this extremely unpleasant British drama, but so be it. British actress Helena B.C., who often takes on offbeat roles, plays a children's author named Enid Blyton. Blyton suffers from bipolar disorder, likely brought on by a miserable childhood in which her mother drove away her father. Blyton initially plans to be a teacher but finds she has a knack for writing about her favorite childhood fantasies, which clearly were meant to transport her out of her sad childhood. She marries her publisher, whom she eventually drives away, repeating the sins of her mother, and marries a much older man, clearly a father figure. For a children's author, she isn't much on children In fact, she can't stand her own children and eventually drives them away as well. When she finds herself preggers by her second husband, she finds a way to get rid of that child as well. Eventually, she lapses into full blown dementia and is reported to have died in the late 1960s. I thought at first she was a fictional character, but apparently there was a real Enid Blyton, who apparently was all the rage in Britain at one time. She apparently never caught on in the U.S. like her contemporaries, Enid Bagnold and Beatrix Potter. It may be that her writing was not up to theirs or that it didn't translate well with the American audience. As a writer with three daughters, I have spent countless hour in libraries and bookstores and never once come across her name. By the way, the real Enid Blyton was horse-faced, which makes me wonder why the filmmakers chose the somewhat attractive B.C. to play her. Nicely photographed and produced, but horribly unpleasant. Unless you like them that way, stay away. B.C. is of course marvelous as the mentally disturbed Blyton. She literally sinks her teeth into the role.

I began watching this quite by accident and became so absorbed in Helena Bonham Carters performance it was impossible to turn it off.Helena Bonham Carter completely absorbs the role of Enid to such an extent it seems that she has been taken over by her. Enid Blyton is portrayed as self absorbed, selfish and a terrible mother which is quite true in reality, although some scenes have been added purely for the narrative.After having two children she becomes more absorbed in the lives of the children who write to her and love her books. She needs the reassurance of being idolised by these children who know nothing about her more than she cares for her own daughters. Her husband Hugh is driven to drink and another woman by her complete self absorbed behaviour and blatant disregard for him now he has served his purpose and been the one to have published her books. She meets another man and begins an affair with him, a doctor called Kenneth Darrell Waters. She asks her first husband for a divorce, ignoring her own adultery and using the children as a bargaining tool. He agrees on the understanding he can see the children whenever he wants and Enid initially agrees. She slowly begins to cut him out of her children's lives by destroying letters he sends them and saying the children are out when he telephones. When her youngest challenges her Enid accuses her of lying and simply send her off to boarding school.This is a very good film, even for people who are not fans of Enid Blyton's, purely for Helena Bonham Carter's breathtaking performance. I would highly recommend this to people.