MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Ten years after he disappeared from his family's life, Sweet William (Chris Leavins) returns home to Nova Scotia for his sister's wedding. Despite the fact that he's gone from a morbidly obese adolescent to a thin, handsome, self-assured young man, the reunion proves bittersweet. Although he reconnects with his loving sister Rosemary (Kerry Fox) and his Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother Grace (Joan Orenstein), he is dismayed to learn that his parents' rocky marriage has settled into permanent animosity. He also witnesses the toll his absence has taken on his abusive, alcoholic father, Whiskey Mack (Peter MacNeill); his tight-lipped mother Iris (Seana McKenna); and Violet (Christine Dunsworth), the tomboyish younger sister he's never met. The past lingers in the very air of William's childhood home; disturbing visions of himself as both a waifish boy (Ian Parsons) and a fat adolescent (Troy Veinotte) follow him everywhere. And it's not just the ghosts who dredge up the past. Rosemary's new husband, Fletcher (Joel S. Keller), flirts shamelessly with William, bringing back memories of the painful relationship the two shared as teenagers. When Iris disappears, William must confront not only the haunting visions of his past, but also the unfinished business he left behind. The feature debut of writer/director Thom Fitzgerald, The Hanging Garden was the winner of the Air Canada People's Choice Award for best picture and the co-winner of the Toronto-CITY TV Award for Best Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Theatre Wide Screen)
• Audio: Dolby Digital
• Screen: Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
• Subtitle: French, English, Spanish
• Features:
  • • Original theatrical trailer
    • English: stereo sound
    • English, french, & spanish language subtitles

AWARDS

• Genie Awards

•     Won Best Screenplay - 1997 (Thom Fitzgerald)
•     Won Best Supporting Actor - 1997 (Peter MacNeill)
•     Won Best Supporting Actress - 1997 (Seanna McKenna)
•     Nominated Best Art Direction/Production Design - 1997 (Taavo Soodor, Charlotte Harper, Darlene Shiels)
•     Nominated Best Cinematography - 1997 (Eric Cayla)
•     Nominated Best Costume Design - 1997 (James A. Worthen)
•     Nominated Best Director - 1997 (Thom Fitzgerald)
•     Nominated Best Editing - 1997 (Susan Shanks)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1997
•     Nominated Best Sound - 1997 (Peter Harper, Georges Hannon, Philippe Espantoso)
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actress - 1997 (Kerry Fox, Joan Orenstein)

• Toronto Film Critics Association

•     Won Best Canadian Film [Runner-up] - 1997

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Thom Fitzgerald

• Producer:

  Arnie Gelbart, Thom Fitzgerald, Louise Garfield

• Screenwriter:

  Thom Fitzgerald

• Cinematographer:

  Eric Cayla, Daniel Jobin

• Composer (Music Score):

  Ashley MacIsaac, Heather Rankin, Mary Jane Lamond, John Roby

• Editor:

  Susan Shanks

• Production Designer:

  Charlotte Harper, Darlene Shiels

• Art Director:

  Taavo Soodor

• Associate Producer:

  Mark Hammond

• Costume Designer:

  James A. Worthen

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Georges Hannon, Philippe Espantoso, Peter Harper

• Publicist:

  Lorraine Jamison

REVIEW:

• This spare, exquisitely nuanced exorcism of childhood ghosts recasts the traditional dysfunctional-family melodrama as a magical-realist fable where both memory and nightmare take physical form and it's up to the viewer to decide what's really happening. The title refers in part to the backyard garden where Whiskey Mack (Peter MacNeill) drills young Sweet William (Ian Parsons) on the names of flowers and where William later sees disturbing visions of a past that never happened. In another director's hands, the film's floral motif -- which runs through everything from the characters' names to the colors they wear -- would come off as cutesy, but here they're employed subtly to reinforce both plot and theme. In fact, most every detail that makes it into the frame contributes to the film's sense of a family equally blessed and cursed by its own traditions, from the ramshackle Nova Scotia house where the characters gather for Rosemary's wedding to the Irish heritage that informs most aspects of their lives. Stellar performances abound, from Seanna McKenna's wonderfully conflicted Iris to Joel S. Keller's lazily sensual Fletcher, but it's the four actors who play William and Rosemary as both teens and adults who give the film its bittersweet poignancy. Kerry Fox invests Rosemary with both a sardonic joyfulness and a devil-may-care realism, while Sarah Polley shows us the sullen, scared adolescent trapped inside her. Troy Veinotte likewise personifies the passive aggression and quiet yearning of the obese young William, while Chris Leavens exhibits the gravity and iron self-control that has allowed the character to transform himself. The urban gay milieu to which William has obviously fled is only alluded to; nevertheless, in excavating both the impetus for that flight and its aftermath, The Hanging Garden says more of relevance to gay men than many other, more exclusively homosexual films. In short, director Thom Fitzgerald helps fulfill both the formal and the narrative promise of New Queer Cinema several years after that movement's moment in the hipster limelight. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi