Review: From Time to Time (2009)

Oh, Netflix, how good you are to us! I found this movie on Netflix, which I had heard of before. I told my mom about it and how it had Maggie Smith in it. I also recognized that Julian Fellowes, who created Downton Abbey, was the screenplay writer and director. My mom and I sat down to watch it one evening not knowing anything about it other than what Netflix said. Also, after watching the movie, I found out that it was a based on a book called The Chimneys of Green Knowe in a series of books called Green Knowe.

Poster/Box Art

Synopsis
Towards the end of WWII, Tolly, a young boy whose father is missing in action, is sent to stay at his grandmother's estate of Green Knowe. Tolly originally doesn't like his grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow, since she disapproved of his mother. When Mrs. Oldknow begins to tell Tolly the story of Maria Oldknow, an ancestor from the early Regency era who had her jewels stolen, Tolly begins to encounter the ghosts who lived at Green Knowe at that time.

The story shifts back and fourth from 1944 to 1805. In 1805, Captain Oldknow, Maria Oldknow's husband returning from sea, arrives with a little boy named Jacob who he rescued from slavery and brought with him to Green Knowe as companion for Susan, his blind daughter. Susan and Jacob become very close friends, much to the chagrin of Sefton, Captain Oldknow's eldest son, who mistreats Jacob and wants him out of the house.