I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

This is difficult material to bring to life, but a young actress named Kathleen Quinlan does it with heart and sensitivity.

"Rose Garden" is very strange upon final analysis: the secular version of a religious film. Without blind faith one cannot believe in miracles. [Full review in Spanish]

Rose Garden falls into the same trap as did Cuckoo's Nest, cashing in on the easy humor and inherently intense drama of mental illness, while slickly bypassing the corrosive aftereffects of its force.

The result is a choppy, unwieldy, episodic hodgepodge, which despite its moving and powerful potential never succeeds.