Fireflies in the Garden is an emotional family melodrama consisting of a stellar cast and predictable plot. It’s a great watch to see compelling performances but if you’re not in the mood for this type of film, it may put you to sleep. I thought the movie had perfect pace but if you don’t get fond with the characters, it will feel dull and slow due to the tedious build up of the plot. The plot itself isn’t anything special but watching it unfold with these characters is. Set in present day, Fireflies depicts the rough tension between three generations of a family with cuts of flashbacks to illustrate how their situations came to be. “What happened to us?”
Ryan Reynolds is the center of this story as Michael Taylor. Reynolds has his usual snarky attitude but delivers it in a very toned down sense which fits this character thanks to the upbringing of his overbearing father Charles Taylor, frighteningly played by Willem Dafoe. Adult Michael can’t forgive his father for all of the things he did to young Michael (Cayden Boyd) which we see in numerous vivid flashbacks. Michael’s saving grace is his loving mother Lisa (Julia Roberts) and best friend/aunt Jane (Hayden Panettiere). With the help of these women, Michael is able to survive and eventually pen romance novels which both he and his father seem to hate. The flashbacks this group offers is quite perplex and leaves the audience wondering what actually happened in the past. There’s sexual tension, authoritative tension and a mix of love and hate that would make any family crumble.
Cayden Boyd is the luckiest little actor with the hot and strong spoken Hayden Panettiere
Michael is coming home to a family reunion for Lisa’s graduation but that quickly turns into a mournful time of remembrance after a fatal car accident. It’s only times like these which bring out the real emotions that people keep buried deep inside. Michael now has a sister Ryne (Shannon Lucio) and adult Jane (Emily Watson) has a family of her own with husband Jimmy (George Newbern), future-emo son Christopher (Chase Ellison) and cutie daughter Leslie (Brooklynn Proulx). While clumsy at parts, Fireflies offers up some real dialogue and touching scenes. The relationships between each family member is dynamic and once you get a hold of who’s who and how they feel about one another, it’s really entertaining to see how each scenario plays out. The way Willem acts with his own son versus his grandchildren and the change between young and old Michael and Jane is uncanny.
I love this picture of Ryan Reynolds and Willem Dafoe in Fireflies in the Garden
Fireflies in the Garden is a beautiful example of both film making and story telling. A lot of the picturesque scenes are textbook and the imagery is both visually and figuratively strong. The classical score is superb and adds yet another dimension to pay attention to on top of this movie. The movie won’t shamelessly pull heartstrings but rather drum up deeper emotions that resonate if you can relate to any of the myriad of stories that intertwine in this family. Writer/Director Dennis Lee does hint at some taboo subject matters but he never really elaborates on them which I can only assume is him saying that everyone thinks about these things but not everybody takes action. He did have way too many characters and when it came to the marriage of Michael and Kelly (Carrie-Anne Moss), it just felt unneeded and sloppy.
This is what you get for reciting a Robert Frost poem!
I enjoyed the movie but wouldn’t recommend watching it unless you’re ready to pay attention to a film’s subtleties. There’s so much going on that it gets a bit confusing at times but if you step back and understand its simplicity, you can really enjoy its complexity…kind of like the poem Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost that inspired this film and which it is somewhat based upon: Here come real stars to fill the upper skies / And here on earth come emulating flies / That though they never equal stars in size / (And they were never really stars at heart) / Achieve at times a very star-like start. / Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part. Wonderful.
Tags: Brooklynn Proulx, Carrie-Anne Moss, Cayden Boyd, Chase Ellison, Dennis Lee, Emily Watson, Fireflies in the Garden, George Newbern, Hayden Panettiere, Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Shannon Lucio, Willem Dafoe
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
