Fireflies in the Garden (2008)

Director:

Dennis Lee

Writers:

Robert Frost (poem)
Dennis Lee (writer)

Release Date:

17 July 2008 (Greece)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The semi-autobiographical story centers on the complexities of love and commitment in a family torn apart when faced by an unexpected tragedy. |

Plot Keywords:

Animal In Title | Insect In Title

Cast

Ryan Reynolds	...	Michael Waechter
Willem Dafoe	...	Charles Waechter
Emily Watson	...	Jane Lawrence
Carrie-Anne Moss	...	Kelly Hanson (as Carrie Anne Moss)
Julia Roberts	...	Lisa Waechter
Ioan Gruffudd	...	Addison
Hayden Panettiere	...	Young Jane Lawrence
Shannon Lucio	...	Ryne Waechter
Cayden Boyd	...	Young Michael Waechter
George Newbern	...	Jimmy Lawrence (as George Newburn)
Chase Ellison	...	Christopher Lawrence
Brooklynn Proulx	...	Leslie Lawrence
Diane Perella	...	Flight Attendant
Natalie Karp	...	Social Worker
John C. Stennfeld	...	Reverend Byers (as Reverend John Stennfeld)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and some sexual content.

Runtime:

Germany:99 min (theatrical version) | Israel:120 min | Germany:120 min (Berlin International Film Festival) | Argentina:120 min | Australia:94 min (DVD)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Finland:K-13 | Netherlands:6 | USA:R | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:13 | Portugal:M/12 | Ireland:15A | Germany:12 | Australia:M | Mexico:B

Filming Locations:

Austin, Texas, USA

Company:

Kulture Machine

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Kelly first appears walking into the house after the funeral, the boom mic is visibly above the doorway.

Soundtrack:

Best Laid Plans

Common or garden

The camera floats high above a Midwestern suburb, picking out rows of wheat fields and identical houses. From the outset of Fireflies In The Garden, we're afforded the position of Olympian gods. But as we observe yet another luckless bunch of ciphers moving through history and their all too predictable paces, the temptation might just be to put them all out of their misery with a well-aimed lightning bolt.

Successful romantic novelist Michael Taylor (Ryan Reynolds) is heading home to witness his mom Lisa (Julia Roberts) receive a belated university diploma after years of putting family first. He'll be staying with Lisa's much younger sister, aunt Jane (Emily Watson), with whom he enjoys a virtual brother-sister relationship - and perhaps something more. But not everything in the garden's lovely: if these glowing sisters and their offspring are the fireflies, there's a nasty-old dad-shaped toad lurking in there too.

En route to the graduation ceremony Lisa is killed and dad is injured in a car crash. The celebration becomes a funeral, a wake and a therapy session, as Michael comforts Jane's guilt wracked son Christopher (Chase Ellision), who blames himself for the tragedy. Michael's homecoming has also reactivated a life-long enmity with bad dad Charles (Willem Dafoe). Armed with his first 'serious' novel, a thinly-disguised, as yet-unpublished memoir of paternal abuse, our hero plans to lob this literary grenade into the grieving widower's lap.

Fireflies is prettily photographed by Julia Roberts' real-life husband Daniel Moder and Reynolds is breezily, snottily standout amid a maxi-pack of stars in the sort-of-lead. But aside from the over-familiar plot (see: Ordinary People, The Squid And The Whale and, especially, Five Easy Pieces), this is a slog of a melodrama. And with at least four sob stories competing for space, characters are left dangling like untied shoelaces, as backstories remain unfertilised.

Lisa, the literal ghost at the feast, might as well have died years ago for all Julia Roberts' dramatic punch; she's solely there to offset Dafoe's over-the-top panto villainy and mimsily placate father and son. Bit of a casting misstep here too: Dafoe and Roberts look so alike these days they could easily pass for brother and sister rather than husband and wife.

That's not the only casting problem: Fireflies continually flits back and forth in time, aiming to show how previous generations are echoed in their successors - traumatized Christopher is clearly a rehashed Michael - and how youthful rebels like Jane (played in girlhood by 'Heroes' star Hayden Panettiere) can be transformed into reluctant conservatives through parenthood. But additionally, into actresses who look absolutely nothing like their junior counterparts.

It's tonally all over the shop too. Scenes such as Michael having noisy sex with the ex in the spare room while a mortified Charles grimaces through a minute's silence for Lisa downstairs, clearly strive for black comedy. (No, it's not actually all that funny, come to think of it.) Yet Dafoe's one-note beastliness is even more uproarious - when it's supposed to be anything but. Then there's the matter of the clunking literalism of the film's title, as Michael and his young cousins swat fireflies with badminton rackets. In the garden. Subtlety is not this one's USP.

Michael's estranged wife Kelly (Carrie-Anne Moss), who - of course - just happens to be a recovering alcoholic, also exemplifies a worryingly reactionary plot device currently enjoying a resurgence in American dramas; the Woman Who Has The Sad Man's Baby, Thus Enabling Him To Heal And Grow And Forgive. A faceless brood mare whose magic foetus instantly resolves the plot and winds the movie up in one fell swoop. Cue credits.