Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This film tells the story of a novelist whose mother dies in a traffic accident. He is family is transformed forever.The story is a mix of present day family interactions of the novelist Michael Taylor, and his flashbacks to his childhood days when he endured emotional abuse from his father. Michael's experience is sad, and I am pleased to see that he turned out to be a functional individual. The father is also a memorable character, as his behaviour is truly despicable. The tale of dysfunctional family interaction, and the subsequent understanding and forgiveness is a nice to watch. However, somehow they do not make much emotional impact on me. Maybe the lost 30 minutes are crucial in engaging the viewers."Fireflies in the Garden" has amassed a lot of biggest stars of Hollywood, and I am surprised that it has not got a wider release as a result.

Great story, keeps your interest and a wonderful cast! A bit of a dark and sad movie but a good plot. It did not deserve the reviews it received from professional critics. I always wondering if giving a movie review was political or even money motivated. Now reading what happened to the unfortunate distribution of the this movie I guess there was no one left to please to grease a palm. The "critics" made themselves look silly and obviously crooked. Have you ever wondered why good movies get bad reviews and horrible movies get good reviews? Well here's a lesson and a prefect example of a good movie getting verbally trashed. Read what happened to the distribution of this movie and you will never read another 'critic' review again. Thanks for reading!!

With such an incredible cast and what seemed to an interesting premise (as seen from the trailers), the characters (other than the main one, Michael) lack depth and the movie feels quite rushed, under-developed and flat. It fails to deliver the impact it needed. With yet another story of a dysfunctional family, the director fails (or is too lazy) to push the story or the characters hard enough. All the actors fit their roles well enough. They are the main reason which keeps you interested. The movie is good, but could have been great.I don't know what so many star actors saw in the script to sign this movie...

"Fireflies in the Garden" is one of those rare movies where a stellar cast and script based on a Robert Frost poem (!) could not get itself a release. Four years later, it got a straight-to-DVD release. And for good reason, it's really bad. It's a dysfunctional family drama where the characters are messed up from beginning to middle to end. There is no relief, comedy or otherwise, from the dysfunction.It starts with the guise that perhaps it's not dysfunctional from the very beginning, but no, it is. I made the mistake of reading the back of the DVD case, where I was informed that the Taylors are the very picture of a happy and successful American family. I wonder what constitutes a successful family: Is it the father emotionally and physically abusing his son? Or the husband emotionally and physically abusing his wife? Or the inappropriate relationship between aunt and nephew? Because all of that was conveyed to us in the first two scenes. Not from the very first minute did I confuse this family as a happy and successful one.The film also implies that the family wants to get out from their past and start afresh. Whether they want to or not, that's not going to happen because they don't even know what a happy and successful family looks like let alone how to be one.The now grown up son, Michael (Ryan Reynolds) has returned home along with his sister and aunt and father (Willem Dafoe). Michael is a writer because it's the classic profession to be able to rid yourself of past demons. I was expecting a sort of mystery to develop as the film certainly did imply that each character was hiding something. Of course they were hiding things – repressed emotions. Which doesn't build to a mystery but melodrama.The title refers to the Frost poem but also one of their childhood activities. Along with everyone I know, on warm summer evenings when the fireflies would be out in their brilliant glory, we would catch them in jars, keep them in our bedrooms, trying to savour the magic of the night. But not the Taylor kids. On warm summer evenings when the glowing fireflies were out, they would go and kill them. Any sympathy was instantly lost, never to be regained.