V.C. Andrews on Lifetime
It’s actually happening. V. C. Andrews’ 1979 novel, Flowers in the Attic (S&S) has been adapted as a Lifetime movie, to air on January 18.
Ellen Burstyn looks like she’s enjoying her role in the trailer, below, of the evil matriarch who abuses her four grandchildren hidden in the attic of her mansion, but Entertainment Weekly reports that she found it exhausting.
Heather Graham plays the childrens’ mother. The older daughter Cathy is played by Kiernan Shipka, who got her start in acting as Sally Draper on AMC’s Mad Men.
Entertainment Weekly dares to ask the question that will be on many minds; “Will there be incest?” Mason Dye, who plays the older brother Chris says they will go there, “We stay very true to the book.”
That subject was only hinted at in the earlier 1987 adaptation, starring Louise Fletcher as the grandmother, Kristy Swanson as Cathy, and Victoria Tennant as the mother. Universally regarded as a flop in its time, it has gone on to become a camp favorite.