User reviews

I'd seen portions of this film on TV when I was about 12, and it frightened me -- I thought it a perversely arousing horror film. Watching it now, I see that it's actually a pretty smartly made literary piece about a family (I could only remember the disturbing images indicated by the film's title). It does have its share of comedy -- there's a lightness in tone that comes mainly from the profuse swearing of the Maritime newlywed (Kerry Fox) who takes part in one of the more awkward marriage processions in recent memory (which also features Ashley MacIsaac on fiddle), and whose marriage instigates the return of her ten-years-gone brother, William. The telling of the film is centered around three tenses of William's life -- his childhood memories, his fat teenage years, and his current appearance -- which are cut up, rearranged, and presented to us, though the unique thing is that Fitzgerald chooses also to surreally intersperse them together into the present one: our current William sees his young self using food as a comfort, and he sees his teen self leave behind his obese body in favor of his current slim frame.

I liked the way that Fitzgerald chose to tackle the mind's abstract identity in this very literal way and I think it makes the film more interesting than its abusive-father/thoughtful-mother family drama otherwise would be. There are some nice touches in the film, like William's apparent young sister who he seems to have swapped gender roles with, and there are some really clever scenes like the one where the current William rushes to help his father -- and his father seeing that his grown son has been playing dress-up; or the scene where his mother has to listen to her son's first sexual experience with a woman. The performances are uniformly good for the film's intent, but Sarah Polley stands out as doing something beyond what's merely required. 8/10

I recently saw this again having first seen it in the theater on its release and been spellbound by it.

Thom Fitzgerald is both the writer and director of an exploration into a family's dysfunction and disintegration amid their getting together for the wedding of the daughter.

The film shows the family in both the present and the past and centres around the newly returned son, Sweet William, the father, Whiskey Mac and his wife, Iris, and their relationship to their three children. The father is a nursery man/gardener and the segments of the movie are titled with the names of flowers. As are the children of the family.

In the past, Sweet William, an unhappy overweight boy is conflicted by his latent homosexuality. He develops a relationship with his friend Fletcher. When they are caught making love, the family completely falls apart.

The message of the film revolves around the theme of family secrets and how attempts to bury or ignore them serves only as a temporary cover-up. They will out.

Peter MacMeill, Kerry Fox, Chris Leavins, Troy Veinoitte, Seana McKenna and Sarah Polley give able, believable performances.

Again, it is one of those under-appreciated Canadian gems that have not been brought to a wider audience. And deserve to be.

And it has one of the most surprising, uplifting endings!

8 out of 10. Bravos to all involved.

Sometimes overly poetic in its gardening parallels, this story of a young man who returns to home after a number of years is intense, mysterious, and certainly not lacking in style. In a unique mixture of flashback fantasy sequences, where characters in the past actually interact with those in the present, we see an overweight teenager come to grips with his homosexuality and the returning adult come to grips with his childhood self.

This is an amazing directorial debut, and the abundance of cinematic tricks are a welcome storytelling tool. Virgin Mary Icons smile at us; a grown man witnesses the suicide he committed in his youth.

The director chooses not to draw thick boundaries around the sexuality of his characters, but doesn't fall into the trap of making them frustratingly ambiguous. Often this leaves the sour aftertaste of homophobia.

The mysterious final chapter closes without the pomp and glory that more established directors might have resorted to. It's subtlety complements its outlandishness in a way that doesn't leave you confused.

"The Hanging Garden" is a slice-of-dysfunctional-life dramady with a coming-of-age flashback which takes you into the tangled web of peculiar family matters and relationships of a Nova Scotia family who live in shadow of a drunkenly abusive patriarch. The quirk infested family includes a gay asthmatic son, a foul mouthed daughter, a wishy-washy mother, a senile old granny, the abusive gardener father, and a kid. The film centers on the grossly overweight son who hangs himself from a tree and remains there as a sort of macabre metaphor for familial dysfunction while living on as a skinny adult and achieving some semblance of normalcy. In spite its obvious weirdness, this earthy flick manages to ground itself with a sense of reality while showing the constant struggle to function in spite of the characters' fractured coping skills. Not for everyone, this fist outing for writer/director Thom Fitzgerald is, IMHO, better than his more recent film "The Event". Fodder for those into quirky flicks about dysfunctional families. (B)

Sweet William, Rosemary, Violet, Basil and the rest. Named after flowers and herbs, people growing together in your typical family garden of mismatched souls. Little William, trying to be something that sets him apart from the rest, something nobody can touch or change. He grows up to be a gay and obese teenager. Lusting after his closest friend. Not the easiest of lives. We meet Willy 10 years later, returning home to celebrate his sister Rosemary's wedding. He is now a slim, attractive young man. But what has happened during those ten years? And who is the little boy running around the house?

Every time I watch this small masterpiece, new layers of meaning turn up. The plot structure gives away some undiscovered truths, together with dialogue pointers I didn't notice before. That, to me, is a film worth seeing! When we showed this at our local film society, it got a great reception, one of the best we ever had for a film.

The Hanging garden is short, bittersweet and - sadly - true to life. You'll find something in this garden for you, whoever you may be!

The best thing about this film is Kerry Fox. Even though the story centers around the homecoming of the homecoming of former fat kid Sweet William (Chris Leavins) it is Fox who shines throughout the film. At times visually stunning, the art direction unfortunately does not distract the viewer from the fact that the character of Sweet William comes across as unlikeable, despite attempts to garner the audience's sympathies. The character of Sweet William's grandmother is touchingly portrayed and there are some tender scenes involving her. I liked it and hated it. Oh, I forgot to mention... is Violet a boy or a girl? I couldn't tell.

A lovely, intelligent film that challenges the viewer's assumptions about reality, while celebrating the power of memory and redemption. I have rarely been so moved by the beauty of a film, visually and verbally. The performances are real, the writing superb. It also boasts one of the most hilarious weddings in cinema history.

So you thought your family was strange. Just take a look at Sweet William's clan, and give thanks after all for your brood. A young, well adjusted man returns home after an absence of several years to find old memories returning to haunt him. As the film weaves in and out of time zones, we experience a full portrait of the ultimate dysfunctional family. Are folks really like this, or is it just something in the Nova Scotian water? Nary a dull moment in this stimulating, often thought provoking expose. If you're game, take a deep breath and enter the world of "The Hanging Garden."

Baffling 'dysfunctional family' drama from Canada darts around in time yet fails to give us much to go on. Newly-skinny young man returns to his parents' home after a ten-year absence to attend his sister's wedding (to a man he has always harbored a crush on); relationships in the household are sketchy, however, as the man remembers his childhood as an overweight kid who once attempted suicide (and was apparently rescued). Thom Fitzgerald wrote and directed the picture with a thudding hand (and a barbed tongue, which I'm not sure is supposed to be funny). His touches of surreality are interesting, and there's always a promise here of the scenario becoming much more provocative, but too many questions are left unanswered. As for the "hanging garden" of the title: it's a cheat, with limbs kicking and flowers dying in stop-motion. Fitzgerald wants to prod the audience in a certain direction, but he doesn't have enough talent as a writer (nor the eye of a perceptive filmmaker) to achieve satisfaction on any level. *1/2 from ****

This film is about a man coming back to his dysfunctional home after he left suddenly 10 years ago.

Right from the beginning, the family is already shown to be dysfunctional and unhappy. The initial wedding scene is unromantic, as it is clear that Rosemary did not want to marry. The grandmother has troubling dementia symptoms, and the father is alcoholic. It exposes a lot of sad and turbulent things that can happen: father's alcoholism, battered mother unable to stand up for herself, parents not being able to accept the son's sexuality, the haunting process of dementia and the destructive power of unresolved grief.

A powerful scene is when William challenges his mother why she has not left her husband. "How will I pay my bills" she says. It's a sad fact, but it is happening to a lot of people right now.

The longer I stayed watching "The Hanging Garden", the more fascinating it became. "The Hanging Garden" has an engaging and complicated plot which is open to interpretation. The ending is unexpected and powerful. It is a film to ponder on, not a film for a popcorn night.

Hanging Garden is a small, intensely felt film about a family in tatters and a son whose own problems are eclipsed until he does something he can't take back. Given the film's major conceit is a breach in family fabric that can't be woven back in, magic realism is an applicable term--but only so if shot through the caustic self-wounding humour of the Maritimes, where I lived for six years. If this seems dour, then consider the take-off marriage sequence that opens the film: drunkeness, homoeroticism, Celtic music madness and four-dozen f-words. This film is a gorgeous if painful tribute to growing up in a remove that already seems past its age, in an ocean playground whose garden has gone to seed. This film was ranked, and fairly, as the best Canadian film of 1997 by the Jay Stone of the Globe & Mail (Canada's national newspaper), and if that makes Americans laugh, then consider this is a ranking ahead of Sweet Hereafter, which only made it to the Best Director Oscar Nomination and Cannes Recognition for Atom Egoyan and was also Roger Ebert's #2 film of the year. Adulations all around are deserving for this home-grown production. The film only suffers from inexperience with some actors and having to come up with a conclusion for a tale that can't logically have one. And the parents are excellent in it too, especially the mum. At the singular, crucial sequence of the film all the elements of the film - colour, symbolism, lamentation and ladyslipperknots - fuse in breathtaking splendor, and I mean so in the inhaled gasp that graces the east coast 'yes '. It still stuns me in memoriam. Four Stars * * * *

I just caught this movie on cable and loved it immediately. Troy Veinotte did a fabulous job, he broke my heart in that role. I wish he'd do more work, or at least show up here and there. I can't seem to locate any interviews he's done, and Hanging Garden seems to be his only role to date.

We want more Troy! I think that boy is just flat out adorable.

The entire movie is now one of my all time favorites. I'll be watching this at least once every six months or so.

I understand that it was a very difficult role for Troy to tackle, but I'm beyond appreciative of the work he did there. Someone needs to nudge him to do more projects.

Based on reviews that I've read I expected something other than this bitter dose of misanthropy. The roles are pastiches that are so over-played as to be wearying. The plot line proceeds in a grueling and gruesome hatefulness to a foregone conclusion. Not a redeeming moment to this turkey.

This movie is nervous and uncomfortably over-acted. A story of hatred like such is not at all surprising nowadays. But the director seems too restless to do a good film.

I have seen many of gloomy movies and liked some of them, but not this one.

The Hanging garden is one of those fine metaphors about familial existence, self explanation, and coping with a certain kind of sexuality in a community which will have none of it. It's central character, a man who returns home after years away, seems out of place in such a crude and rugged environment as the East Coast. He must, in a certain kind of mindset, face what he was, and try to bury that past for good. His struggle, one of growing to realize what has happened and how he has changed, leads him on a bizarre odyssey of acceptance and growth. The rest of his family may seem somewhat rude and unkempt, but keep in mind that people are pretty much this way in the Martimes at any right. A fine film, especially by Canadian standards.

This is a wonderfully affecting movie I stumbled on by accident. I found the story deeply touching and beautifully told. Not a false step in this movie, the music is perfect. The pain of the hero is rendered so precisely that I found it overwhelming, the hanging scene haunts me still.

I didn't really like the look of the film because it was bright and hard on the eyes, but the story line was so perfect. The symbolism of his 'death' and the developing of the story really made this movie worthy to be a Canadian classic. I thought the acting was great from everyone on it. The father also made me uncomfortable most of the time but that was probably the point.

The Hanging Garden is my favorite all-time movie. The storyline is perfect and the camera shots would have pleased Alfred Hitchcock. Thom Fitzgerald, its stunning director, ties everything together. I have watched this movie several times -- each time seeing much more.

The main obstacle in the way of my enjoying this film is the disconcerting elements of surrealism and irrationality inserted into a film that is in every other way naturalistic. I must say I had some difficulty coming to terms with this aspect of the film which at first glance made no sense at all. I was irritated by it. Taken at face value this aspect of the film was ludicrous. It goes like this:

We have a grotesquely obese teenager who has a homosexual encounter. He is caught in the act by his grandmother and, as a result, is taken by his mother to see a young woman who's forte is sexual initiation. Either this, his previous experience or his obesity, depresses him so much that he commits suicide. And we know he succeeds because all the flowers in the garden die with him. But, and this is where the madness and contradictions start, he comes back from the dead ten years later metamorphosed into a handsome, slim young man! And he finds his doppelganger still hanging from the tree in the garden!

Now a doppelganger is a figment of someone's imagination, a wraith that doesn't really exist; and if it had remained as such, say a symbolic representation of his earlier life, I would have had little difficulty in going along with it. But no. He touches it and his dad hugs it and he then buries it and his dad tries to dig it up. Well, you can't bury a doppelganger, so it must be a real body, a body that's been hanging from a tree for ten years without showing any signs of decomposition. And if it is a real dead body and it's his real dead body, how come he's still alive?

Now if you can accept all this as not being real behaviour but as some elaborate metaphor for his wish to be free of his past and his dad's wish to cling onto it, then you might just enjoy the film. It has a lot of good things going for it.