Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story is a 2000 miniseries television film, and the third installment in a series of four films. The film was highly anticipated among fans of Anne of Green Gables, and was the most controversial and heavily criticized of the three film adaptations written and produced by Kevin Sullivan.
The Continuing Story was criticized principally because, unlike the 1985 film Anne of Green Gables and its 1987 sequel, the screenplay is not based on Lucy Maud Montgomery's works, but is instead a completely original World War I story written by Sullivan and Laurie Pearson. Montgomery had in fact written a novel focused on Anne's youngest daughter set in that same period, Rilla of Ingleside, in which Anne is a middle-aged married woman whose three sons are at war in Europe.
The chronology of Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables films is not synchronized with Montgomery's novels, largely because of the spin-off series Road to Avonlea. Over the course of developing original characters and stories for seven seasons of Road to Avonlea, the time frame of Sullivan's fictional world evolved into a 20-year difference from the novels. As a result, Sullivan decided to make the third film an entirely new story that took Anne and Gilbert to the battlefields of World War I instead of their children.
The film was also criticized for introducing a continuity problem. Following Colleen Dewhurst's death in 1991, Marilla Cuthbert's passing was written into Road to Avonlea. At the funeral, Hetty King refers to Gilbert and Anne Blythe, stating they are married. Anne does not appear in the episode because she is sick with scarlet fever which, according to Gilbert, she contracted from one of their children. However, in The Continuing Story, set long after Marilla's death, the two are still engaged and do not have children. The film attempts to resolve the discontinuity by having Gilbert say that they have been engaged so long that people think they got married years ago, and by revealing that Anne had scarlet fever while teaching at an orphanage in Nova Scotia.
Megan Follows reprised the role of Anne Shirley, Jonathan Crombie returned as Gilbert Blythe and several other cast members from the first two films also appear.
Synopsis
Anne Shirley returns to Avonlea after five years of teaching at an orphanage in Nova Scotia while separated from her fiancé, Gilbert Blythe, who was finishing medical school. After catching up with Diana Barry and other old friends, Anne visits Green Gables. She is horrified to find that since Marilla's death (in the third season of Road to Avonlea), the owners have treated Green Gables so poorly, that it is falling apart. Later, Anne is reunited with Gilbert on the island. However, instead of settling down immediately, Gilbert asks Anne to move to New York since he has been offered a staff position at Bellevue, a prestigious medical institution. Her reluctant agreement comes with the promise of being published and that they will return to Prince Edward Island to raise their family.
In New York, Anne is employed as a junior editor at a small publishing house, where she meets Jack Garrison, a writer and local sensation who becomes interested in Anne. Seeing her potential as a writer, he offers to become the editor for her new manuscript and use his influence to have it published under both their names. He threatens to jump from a window if Anne does not accept his help. When the manuscript is accepted, Anne is outraged to learn that Jack has presented it as entirely his own, and the publisher refuses to give her credit. She breaks off contact with Jack, who reveals he has fallen in love with her. Meanwhile, Gilbert is troubled by his work at Belleview hospital - most of the doctors are more interested in prestige than in saving lives. Disillusioned by life in New York, Anne and Gilbert return to Prince Edward Island.
Upon returning to Avonlea, Gilbert buys Green Gables from Mr. Harrison and they set about restoring the house as they plan their wedding. Anne accidentally starts a fire, slightly damaging the house. However, the couple find the effect of the war in Europe to be much more present; Fred Wright, Diana's husband, eventually enlists in the war as his family life becomes increasingly strained. Increasing pressure results in Gilbert enlisting as medical officer and he convinces Anne to marry him before he leaves. When he is declared missing in action, Anne leaves for Europe as a Red Cross volunteer in hopes of finding him.