Fireflies In The Garden - Review
Review by Michael Edwards
AN ALL-star cast heads up this complex and rambling family drama about three generations of messed-up relationships and the blood, sweat and tears they endure.
Initially, we’re thrown into the 1970s where we begin the story of matriarch Lisa Waechter (Julia Roberts) and Patriarch Charles Waechter (Willem Dafoe) as they raise their son Michael (Cayden Boyd) and his similarly-aged Aunt Jane (Hayden Panettiere).
Charles is a successful and ambitious college professor, whose ideals make him cold and harsh on his family. Needless to say, this builds a lot of pent up aggression in young Michael, aggression which is somewhat alleviated by the presence of his young aunt who proves to be a sympathetic figure and a confidante.
This story is, however, punctuated by a tragedy in the present. This event transports us to a place where Jane has grown up, surprisingly, into Emily Watson and scrawny young Michael has become a buff Ryan Reynolds. Jane has a family and dilemmas of her own and Michael is still hung up on the past: a situation signified by an unnecessary alcoholic wife (Carrie-Ann Moss) and a semi-autobiographical novel about his childhood.
Thus, we are set up for a confusing collage of past and present family issues, interspersed with strange familial quirks such as making fish explode with firecrackers and cruelly swatting fireflies with tennis rackets.
It’s a whirlwind ride with lots to pick through. Jumps between past and present occur seemingly at random, as if the director is seeking to present a timeline dictated by the memories and emotions of Michael in the present, but is unclear about how best to convey that to the audience.
What’s more, the flat cinematography with its muted colours and slow camerawork provides little in the way of contrast between the two periods. Or between immediate experience, memory and fantasy for that matter.
The issues dealt with on this hazy journey range from patriarchal dominance to fidelity, with characters displaying symptoms that vary from an inability to shut out strong emotions to a frustrating emotional numbness of someone unloved for too long.
The character relationships are rich and complex and Ryan Reynolds, in particular, puts in an excellent performance as Michael. In fact, his ability to be carefree and detached with a sardonic charm was one of the unexpected delights of the film.
The trouble is that the performances are somewhat tempered by clunky scripting. The fractured narrative is occasionally papered together with lines of dialogue so obvious that they can only have been inserted to signify a flashback, or summarise a previous piece of action in order to inform the audience that we’re now moving on. This can be an unwelcome undertaking even in the most complex of films although, for all of its confusions, Fireflies in the Garden is certainly not that.
Inhabiting this strange cinematic purgatory is not for everyone. Too haphazard in its exposition for your average cinema-goer, it’s not an enjoyable experience, and for all the variety of human drama it addresses, a satisfying conclusion is never reached.
Nonetheless, with such admirable ambitions and an impressive cast to pull it through, it is (somehow) a rewarding experience: it’s just difficult to pinpoint who its audience will be.
Certificate: 15
Running time: 99mins
Release date: May 29, 2009