Fireflies in the Garden

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.

Jeez Willem Dafoe is such a bastard in this, I really (really) hated him here. Decent movie with a great cast, giving great performances in a dysfunctional family drama.

For the most part the plot follows 'Michael' (Ryan Reynolds) flip-flopping back and forth between him at the age of 12 and at 30 following the unexpected death of a family member and just before he publishes a memoir that will reveal painful family secrets.

Reynolds does a good job as Michael, he's pretty messed up after being raised (tortured) by an abusive, manipulative father. I enjoyed the entire cast as they muddle through tragedy but was left frustrated by how many of the "secrets" were never revealed -I had questions left unanswered. And in no way had Dafoe's character redeemed himself in the end, which I think we were meant to assume. 9/8/14

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.

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.

FIREFLIES IN THE GARDEN is a perplexing movie. The story seems as though someone threw the script up in the air with the fireflies in the garden (a quite beautiful moment in the film that suggest the night gardens of John Singer Sergent's 'Carnation Lily, Lily Rose'), shot it full of holes and then reassembled it the next groggy morning. Pieces are simply missing: we are informed that the original version is 122 minutes while this version is only 89 minutes and it is likely that in the missing 33 minutes many of the unresolved and very confusing elements of time and place and character development and perplexing moments existed. Writer/Director Dennis Lee obviously had a fine story to share and a brilliant cast to offer it, but so much of it is missing that we are left frustrated.

Successful Romance novelist Michael Taylor (Ryan Reynolds) has completed his latest novel, a work of serious memoir literature in which he has recounted his childhood in an attempt to free himself from the influence of his demonic father, English professor Charles Taylor (William Dafoe) who seriously abused Michael as a child and for whom he holds little emotion but disdain. Michael has returned home for the college graduation of his sister Ryne (Shannon Lucio) as well as his mother's - Lisa (Julia Roberts) - deferred graduation. But the celebration is altered by an accident: Charles swerved to not hit his nephew Christopher (Chase Ellison), hit a pole resulting in a crash that killed Lisa and injured Charles and leaves Christopher with a dark cloud of guilt that he caused the trauma.

We gradually meet the family: Lisa's sister Jane (Emily Watson) is the mother of Christopher and his little sister and has always been the closest friend of Michael when they were children (as children, Michael is portrayed by Cayden Boyd and Jane by Hayden Panettiere ), At Lisa's funeral Michael's 'ex-wife', AA reformed Kelly (Carrie-Anne Moss) shows up to add to Michael's angst. From here the film jumps back and forth between the childhood of Michael and Jane and the suffering and abuse Michael endured at the hands of his grotesquely diabolical father and the secrets of that failed family life are gradually exposed and the traumatic present. In cleaning out Lisa's things Michael discovers some information that alters his view of his past, and those discoveries lead to a change in the way Michael views his father and Jane's children and most significantly the demons that have burdened him through his life.

In addition to the fine work by Reynolds, Watson, Dafoe, Roberts, and all the other cast members, there is an important cameo for Ioan Gruffudd that opens the murk of the story well. Though this journey through the progress of a dysfunctional family has been done many times before and even frequently using the protagonist as a novelist about to open the secrets of the family's lives to the world, this story take some significant alternative routes that make it more tender. The uses of flashbacks could have been better edited so that the audience is aware of when the character changes occur, and there are many unanswered questions about how each of these characters came to inhabit the human roles they present here. But given the fact that the audience must stay completely alert during this film in order to follow this at times meandering story, this is a worthy film. One wonders why the missing 33 minutes were not included in the American release (the film was made in 2007 and it seems as though it never played the theaters, going instead directly to DVD). With a cast of this caliber this should have been a popular film. But where did those missing pages take us?

Grady Harp