I began watching this quite by accident and became so absorbed in Helena Bonham Carters performance it was impossible to turn it off.

Helena Bonham Carter completely absorbs the role of Enid to such an extent it seems that she has been taken over by her. Enid Blyton is portrayed as self absorbed, selfish and a terrible mother which is quite true in reality, although some scenes have been added purely for the narrative.

After having two children she becomes more absorbed in the lives of the children who write to her and love her books. She needs the reassurance of being idolised by these children who know nothing about her more than she cares for her own daughters. Her husband Hugh is driven to drink and another woman by her complete self absorbed behaviour and blatant disregard for him now he has served his purpose and been the one to have published her books. She meets another man and begins an affair with him, a doctor called Kenneth Darrell Waters. She asks her first husband for a divorce, ignoring her own adultery and using the children as a bargaining tool. He agrees on the understanding he can see the children whenever he wants and Enid initially agrees. She slowly begins to cut him out of her children's lives by destroying letters he sends them and saying the children are out when he telephones. When her youngest challenges her Enid accuses her of lying and simply send her off to boarding school.

This is a very good film, even for people who are not fans of Enid Blyton's, purely for Helena Bonham Carter's breathtaking performance. I would highly recommend this to people.

Enid Blyton is one of the best known children's authors to come from the UK, writing around 800 books during her career and created notable characters like Noddy and the Famous Five. When BBC Four made a season called Women we Loved they went for a warts and all telling of her live.

Enid starts of with Enid Blyton (Alexandra Brain/Lisa Diveney/Helena Bonham Carter) in the middle of a broken home. She would tell stories to her brothers to reassure them when their parent argued. Her father leaves the family Enid blames her mother and when old enough leaves to London to be come a writer. After some initial rejection Enid meets the publisher Hugh Pollock (Matthew MacFayden) and the two quickly fall in love and marry. With Enid becoming successful their become wealthy, start to have a family. Yet their marriage soars and whilst Enid was very good with young fans was a terrible mother to her own children. With the looming Hugh's stress increases and Enid finds comfort with another man, Kenneth Walters (Dennis Lawson).

Helena Bonham Carter is one of my favourite actresses and basically I would watch her in anything: even if a film is bad she is still very good in it. Her performance in Enid was very grounded and shows a very complex character, a woman who was brilliant children who were not own and had millions of fans, but awful with her own, often letting the nanny take care of them. Enid was made out to be a woman who would escape into fantasy and pretend nothing bad was happening, lying to save face. A woman who was too focused on her reading and had daddy issues for all her life. Bonham Carter was great at portraying this complex and rather vile character. But it was not just the Helena Bonham Carter show, Matthew MacFayden and Ramona Marquez were also great in Enid. Matthew MacFayden is an excellent actor and my favoured choice to follow Daniel Craig as 007. Here he has to play the archetypal 1930s man, some who had to bury his emotions and used alcohol to suppress them. But MacFayden was not just an emotional constipated, he does show a character who loves his children and who did love Enid once. Ramona Marquez is a great young child actress, best know for her role in Outnumbered. She still plays a naïve character, but this time much more scared and confused. She worked really well with the adult actors in the film.

James Hawes is best known as a television director and with Enid he didn't have much he could do. He did try and bring in some flair with flashbacks and the occasional fantasy sequence, but for the most part he was making a period pieces. But he still does a fine job, working with limited settings and with a limited budget was able to make Enid very authentic. He also got excellent performances from his actors and shows he has some talent.

Overall, worth watching, particularly if you are a Helena Bonham Carter fan.

After watching the "E. Nesbit" episode from "The Edwardians" I realised why her books ("The Railway Children", "The Enchanted Castle" etc) have become classics enjoyed by children and adults alike - it is because she truly loved children and could put herself into their world. Enid Blyton as portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter was a harpy - a person who could write formularized children's books that appealed to only the young but had no empathy with her own!!

I watched this as a couple of friends had recommended it and was completely absorbed in the whole strange story of Enid Blyton's life - and Helena Bonham Carter can take full credit for this. I think the signs were there from the start, having a father who is the apple of your eye desert you, then trying unsuccessfully to escape from a mother, who from the couple of scenes she had, was not going to sugar coat life - here was a girl who wanted to escape reality.

From the film she didn't seem to struggle for recognition with her writing, once she started she married her publisher who then began to drink heavily when he realised she was completely self absorbed and only thought of herself and her "little friends" - he and the kids could go to Hell!! One of her children, Imogen Pollock wrote a book about what having Enid Blyton for a mother was really like, called "A Childhood at Green Hedges" and I am sure the film must have borrowed heavily from this.

The film opens with an explosive Enid answering a charge from the B.B.C. that her books are not her own but as the film unfolds it's clear that she has written every single word, she doesn't have time for anything else, she certainly wouldn't win "Mother of the Year"!! Enid is so full of love and gratitude to her fans, her "little friends", but as exasperated Hugh says "if they knew you they wouldn't like you" - she takes them on outings, invites them to parties where they can eat as much red jelly as they like but up at the top of the shadowy stairs it seems like the only children not having any treats are her own!!

Worse is to come when Hugh goes to war, Enid takes up with Kenneth Walker (Denis Lawson) and he returns to find Enid about to divorce him. He shoulders all the blame for the privilege of seeing his daughters whenever he likes but with the divorce finalised, Enid reneges on her promise and also is the means of him never being able to work in publishing again!! Her new husband is just as happy to shield her from life's brutal facts. One scene where the father comes home on leave and the little girls are eager to show him their rabbits - ""There were two but Mummy and Uncle Ken ate one". Another is when Enid puts a little Noddy doll in pride of place on a table and moves her family photos to the very back and in the most telling (for me) Enid, as a new mother, just staring and staring at her little baby screaming, not having the least inclination to pick her up or soothe her, wanting desperately to get back to the books for her little friends.

Life can't always be put on hold and when her brother Carey reappears in her life (she had told everybody that her family had died) to tell her that her mother had just died and why had she forsaken them, plus a few shocking truths about her beloved father, Enid suffers a complete breakdown which may have led to the dementia that killed her.

Pretty gripping stuff if you only know Enid Blyton as the author of Noddy, The Magic Faraway Tree, The Secret Seven and the Famous Five!!!