Fireflies in the Garden Poster

Fireflies in the Garden (2008)

Drama  
Rayting:   6.5/10 12.5K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 7 August 2008

The Taylor family is devastated by an accident that takes place on the day their matriarch is due to graduate from college decades after leaving to raise her children.

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kosmasp 15 July 2008

I watched this movie at the Berlin Film Festival and I have to admit that I was surprised by Ryan Reynolds. He can play the dramatic role(s) as you can see him do here ...

His performance anchors the movie and although we have other great actors here too, he is the one that leads us into and through the story. You won't be surprised to hear/read that the story is semi-auto-biographical. It is that deep and it goes into his characters. Having said that, William Dafoe is somewhat of a show-stealer too. Although I do think he could have been a bit better sketched (yes OK he's defined by a real human, but it feels more like a restriction to me). All in all, a drama with occasional light moments in an overall dark story.

MacAindrais 12 October 2008

Fmovies: Fireflies in the Garden (2008) **1/2

The problem with movies about dysfunctional families is the same one that spy movies have: they're a dime a dozen, and rarely offer anything new. Wes Anderson has made dysfunction his specialty. Noah Baumbach's Squid and the Whale was also a very good film about dysfunctional families, as is Jonathan Demme's new film Rachael Getting Married. Dennis Lee's feature length debut, Fireflies in the Garden is a technically well made film. It looks good, it sounds good. Lee is a sound director. But good direction can't always save a flat script. That's the problem with the movie. It offers nothing new into an already crowded genre.

I suspect that the film's script must have looked quite good. After all, it netted a slew of stars - Ryan Reynolds, Emily Watson, Willem Defoe, Hayden Panettiere, Iaon Gruffud, and Julia Roberts. Reynolds stars as as Michael Waechter, the son of a self absorbed intellectual jerk, Charles (Dafoe). His mother is Lisa (Roberts). The film goes back and forth in time, between Michael's childhood and present day. While on the way to Rhyne, the daughter's graduation party, Charles and Lisa get into a car accident while trying to avoid Christopher, Lisa's nephew. Lisa is killed.

This sets up situations and complications to bring everyone together so they can argue and bicker, and of course, eventually reconcile. As the family gathers at the old family home, where Jane (Watson in the present, Panattiere in the past) now lives, old feelings are drudged over, and while going through their mother's things, Michael discovers a secret about his mother.

Robert's and Watson play caring mothers. Lisa is passive, maybe too passive. Why she allows Charles to get away with some of the cruel things he does to the young Michael are confounding.

Meanwhile, the film also glosses over the relationship between Jane and Michael, who are roughly the same age. That relationship is almost incestuous, although Lee never dares to fully delve into it. Everyone does solid work with their roles. Again a part of the technical solidity of the film. It's just that the story is too familiar, too flat. In the end, Dafoe has some moments of depth, and Reynolds gives a strong and layered performance. Otherwise, the script doesn't take enough time to flesh out its characters.

Sure Michael has every reason to hate his father. He's a jerk, unabashedly so. The story needs to be maybe flushed out more, or maybe way less. There are stories enough for about three movies here. The plot line regarding young Christopher, who feels tremendous guilt over Lisa's death is enough for a film of this length. But there are so many other stories going on that it gets only limited time.

There are some other small nitpicks that can be made. First, none of the kids look like their adult counterparts. That would be fine in a better movie, but here it's something you pick out. Second, although the film is set somewhere outside Chicago, it feels like somewhere in the south. Probably because it was shot in and around Texas.

Based on a script that floated around Hollywood for sometime before getting financed, Fireflies in the Garden has floated around looking for a release since its debut back at the Berlin Film Festival. It's reported that the film will get a release come November. I suspect it will be limited, and suspect that it won't stick around theaters for long. Robert's might attract a few

melvam1 28 March 2008

I was lucky enough to see an early screening of "Fireflies in the Garden" and it was great. While there were several stand out performances--Julia Roberts, Cayden Boyd, Hayden Panettiere...I have to say Ryan Reynolds is the one that really got me. First of all this is not one of his usual roles. Secondly, while his incredible comedic timing added lightness at appropriate moments and depth to his character's struggles, it was the open access to his heart that really moved me. Third of all...I don't really have a point but, now I'm a FAN! Um, I ended up crying quite a bit watching this movie. It's great! I hope it's released soon.

hduck1 20 March 2013

Fireflies in the Garden fmovies. I agree with others who did not like the film. It was like watching a jigsaw puzzle being put together without a picture of the whole scene. It's not that the acting was bad in my opinion, but there was no reason to make the story so difficult to follow. It wasn't until I had finished watching the show that I looked at commentaries, and at IMDb to find out who was who, and who was related to whom, and by what connection.

OK, we all have a past and many of us have complaints about our parents, but most of us do not air them, because we are far from perfect ourselves. We also learn as we grow older (hopefully), and our misbehavior toward our children was not with the intention of hurting them -- mostly it was because of personal anxieties about life, and how to protect our children from many destructive mistakes.

By contrast to this movie about family dysfunction, and the processes of remembering the past, another screenplay which uses some of the same techniques, and which is possibly my favorite teleplay of all time is the original version of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Never have I seen a screenplay so perfectly written and directed and cast and acted as this one. It is a marvel, and it contains a lot of ironic humor too.

The Robert Frost poem of the same name is a very good analogy. There are some few who are true stars, and there ore others who would like to be stars but are like the fireflies. Their little lights may appear momentarily to light the night sky, but they do not last long.

lgilbertom 5 February 2009

I watched this movie on DVD and I confess that I rented reluctantly this movie. However, I had a pleasant surprise, the story is about a boy who in his adult version is played by Ryan Reynolds with serious relationship problems with his father (William Dafoe). I am really surprise with Ryan Reynolds performance, also the young Michael with play Cayden Boyd. The whole story in one way or another turn around the problem of relationship between both. The movie uses well the flashback resource to show the problems of this family and especially the problems between Michael and his father. Naturally, there are good interpretations of the rest of the cast especially for Emily Watson(Michael's Aunt). A movie that really is worth watching.

msmspacek 21 August 2008

I agree with Raj Doctor, although I would rate the film higher.

The film was released in Russia with little publicity and became lost in the summer blockbusters. Without revealing information, the acting is excellent. The story is very indeed very realistic. If you find realism boring, then this is not a film for you.

The final third of the film, however, is missing. I have read that at the Berlin Film Festival, where the film premiered, it was announced to be 2 hours long, but the version in Russia is missing 20 minutes. Because the ending felt rushed while the rest of it was very well controlled, I cannot help but believe that this time was taken out of the final act. It's a shame really, because it could have been a great film. As it is, it is still a very good film that I recommend for the patient viewer.

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