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Dreamchild Reviews

Uneasy blend of fantasy, flashback, and historical recreation, salvaged by the superb Coral Browne. In 1932 Browne is an 80-year-old British woman coming to the US for the first time. She was the sweet youngster Lewis Carroll wrote about in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and she's coming to New York to receive an honorary degree on Carroll's 100th birthday. After arriving in New York, Browne meets hotshot Peter Gallagher who is soon the agent for the old woman, collecting a hefty percentage for negotiating all the deals that have been offered. Browne finds it difficult to keep up with this commercial merry-go-round and begins to sink back in memory to her youth. The movie flashes back 70 years to when the young woman (now played by Amelia Shankley) sits at the feet of the old mathematician-turned-writer Ian Holm. All the famed characters, brainchildren of Muppetmaster Jim Henson, somehow seem too reminiscent of his television work. The perfect Alice continues to live only in the mind's eye and not on film.