Rating: 
Summary: An overgrown garden
Review: Like many things Canadian, this film takes a bit of getting used to. At first glance, it seemed confusing and too understated and I was on the verge of writing off the whole Canadian film industry as a load of bunkum, when I gave myself and the film a second chance. And I'm glad I did.'The Hanging Garden' is in many ways, 'American Beauty' taken up north. There's family dysfunction galore, (...)repressed and rescued, symbolism around every corner and yes, the flowers. But whereas Sam Mendes' opus concentrates on the symbolism of the rose, Canadian Thom Fitzgerald throws a whole garden at us. Sweet Williams, Black-Eyed Susans, Violets, Laurels and even an Iris, the image of garden as family and flower as individual is brilliantly done here. And whereas Mendes focused on satirizing the surface of things, Fitzgerald has gone deep into some pretty dark territory. Sweet William returns 'home' after a ten-year exile from his family and painful childhood. He arrives on the day his beloved sis, Rosemary, is to be married. Nothing out of the ordinary, just Sweet Willy's a little late. And for a reason. This Sweet William is a much different person than the one who escaped ten years ago. As the story unfolds, the weeds of the family's past begin to poke up through the dirt. William returns to an alcoholic father, Whiskey Mac, who has succeeded in alienating just about everybody with his tyrannical selfishness. In fact, on the night of his return, William helps him to bed and then has a heart to heart chat with his mother, Iris. Iris blames her children and her abusive husband for keeping her in bondage, when in fact, her own exaggerated sense of duty has kept her locked up all along. She suddenly elopes from the house and sets the family upside down as to why she has disappeared. As the search for answers continues, William sees the ghosts of his former unhappy self, an obese, self-loathing teen who can't come to terms with his own homosexuality, glide through the house and garden. William retraces the steps of his sorrowful childhood, from his first (...)experience (with the boy who would later become his sister's husband!) to the final climax of his self-hatred. William must confront the person he tried to kill ten years ago in the garden. Who was he? Why was he pushed to such an act? And how can he move on? But his journey to freedom means facing some unpleasant truths from the past and present, not all entirely of his own making. Caught in flagrante delicto with a boy by his near-senile, Virgin-hugging Catholic granny, William is sent to the local prostitute. Sent by his mother no less! And ten years later, William learns that the foul-mouthed tom-boy brat at his sister's wedding is actually the fruit of that most unpleasant union. Moreover, his sister's groom, Fletcher, Willy's first love whose rejection led to the near-fatal suicide attempt, now desires the new, sexy William more than ever! The film is convoluted, contrived and utterly confusing as plausibilty is stretched to the limits. It would be hard to find such mother as Iris, or a husband-to-be like Fletcher, but somehow, the film makes you believe it all could have happened. And that's the whole point. Whatever really happened in the past is never as clear as we would like it to be. Lines cross, colors bleed and images blur. At first, the acting struck me as too low-key, but after two more viewings, the subtle performances of Chris Leavin (William), Peter Mc Neill (Whiskey Mac), and Seanna Mc Kanna (Iris), more than made up for the lack of big names involved. Also, the backdrop of Celtic music combined with exquisite camera work (close-ups of flowers and faces!) made the film a treat to watch. Despite some pernicious weeds, 'The Hanging Garden' makes its case. In order for us to free ourselves from our past, we need to confront it and then bury it deep, for under every flower bed lies a whole lot of manure.
Rating: 
Summary: Cinem. gem that not only makes you think,it heals your soul!
Review: Since reviewer from Toledo, Ohio did such a good job, trying to give readers a quick synopsis of the film, I only want to add my personal reaction to "The Hanging Garden". I saw it as a part of the Gay Film Festival at my Universitry, and I was struck by it. I think it is an absolute gem of contemporary cinema; it is powerful in every single way... This film struck some very painful cords with me, even though I am neither a man nor a gay person, but in the process of watching I was also "healed" by it. It is just very sad that bigger audiences missed such a profound piece of art, just because it was branded "gay film", in addition to being Canadian (which might have scared away people, who would otherwise enjoy it). Canadian filmmakers do an exceptionally good job as do the "gay filmamkers". It is simply a shame that cinema (as any art, in general) should be put into such contraining and suffocating categories, instead of being brought up-front, for all people to enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolute Amateur Poo-Poo
Review: Stultifyingly boring hack-job. Grossly manipulative. Obvious to the extreme. Laughably predictable. Void of talent. The whole film looks as if it was pieced together from the outtakes of various dysfunctional-family morning talk-shows with bottom-of-the-barrel Felliniesque symbolisms thrown in to make the entire project seem "artful." I don't think I've seen a more amateurish piece of work in years. A real symptom of the growing degeneration of modern independent film-making. The moral: Just because you CAN put a film camera in the hands of an emotionally complicated wanna-be these days...it doesn't mean you SHOULD.
Rating:
Summary: The Garden of Mismatched Souls
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Different
Review: Take a gay son, an alcoholic father, an emotionally retarded mother, an emotionally disturbed daughter, a grandmother suffering from Alzheimers, a blind dog, winking Christian statues, and what does that add up to? One wierd movie! This film defeats any attempt at categorization (which, according to the liner notes, was the writer's intent). It can best be described as comedy-horror. The family is so dysfunctional that at many points we honestly don't know whether to laugh or cringe. I'll give the film this much -- it's different. But unless you delight in seeing other people's mental and physical diseases I'd recommend renting it before buying.
Rating:
Summary: Dark, sad and understandable
Review: The film quality was good as was the audio. The actors did a good job and the story was strange but something connects with a great many who will see it. I related well with the film and was drawn into some parts deeply. I feel it was a good investment.
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece, Exciting, Challenging, and Extremely Poignant
Review: The Hanging Garden Leads us all to wonder what it would be like to have a second oppurtunity. A chance to do it all over again, and the conciquences that come with that second chance. Brave and extremely challenging I recommemd this film to all with an open mind!
Rating:
Summary: A Difficult film to Appreciate.
Review: 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 an 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 any sign 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 as lot of good things going for it.
Rating:
Summary: Holds the interest
Review: This film is a strange, sad film about a young gay man and his miserable family. It reaches a point of crisis at his sister's wedding. There are tragic, believeable characters: the alcoholic father who can't control his temper, the burned-out mother worn down from keeping the family together, the daffy grandmother, the brassy, devoted sister, her indecisive, mixed-up husband. But for all that, we always remain fixated on the main character, both as despairing, lonely teenager and quietly self-assured young man. Some scenes grab the emotions like few other films have, especially for gay men struggling with unhappy childhoods. The only problem is that it's sometimes hard to understand. The director strives to be artistic, which is admirable, but the mixing of realistic melodrama and surrealism results in uncertainty, and when the film is over, I was uncertain as to what the director was trying to say. However, it is always gripping and holds the attention.
Rating:
Summary: Great film to watch and own!
Review: This film is one of the best. Although it at times was confusing, I found this film to bring out the innermost feelings and actions of many gays. I loved the movie.
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