# The Hanging Garden
**The Hanging Garden** is a 1997 Canadian drama film, the debut feature of writer-director Thom Fitzgerald, about Sweet William, a gay man who returns to his rural [Nova Scotia](https://www.edgepedia.org/nova-scotia) family after ten years away and must confront the memory of his teenage suicide attempt in the family garden. It runs 91 minutes, was shot in 35mm color, and premiered at the 1997 [Toronto International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/toronto-international-film-festival), where it won the People's Choice Award and, tied with [Atom Egoyan](https://www.edgepedia.org/atom-egoyan)'s *The Sweet Hereafter*, the award for Best Canadian Feature Film.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/awards/) • [3](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1997/09/18/le-palmares_3775815_1819218.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 1997, Canada; 91 min, 35mm color, English; US release November 7, 1997[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/) |
| Filmmaker | Written, directed, and co-produced by Thom Fitzgerald, a Halifax-based filmmaker; his first feature[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden) |
| Premise | Sweet William (Chris Leavins), 25 and openly gay, returns home for his sister's wedding after a 10-year absence[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) |
| Central image | As a 300-pound teenager he tried to hang himself from a tree in the garden; the family still sees the image of him swinging there[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) |
| Major awards | People's Choice Award and Best Canadian Feature at TIFF 1997; four major prizes at the 1997 Genie Awards[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/awards/) • [5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden) |
| Budget and gross | Estimated budget CA$1,500,000; domestic box office $925,756 per The Numbers, while IMDb lists a worldwide gross of $24,909[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/) • [6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Hanging-Garden-The) |
| Critical standing | 94% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 16 reviews[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hanging_garden) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and structure
The story is set on a single day, the wedding of Rosemary (Kerry Fox) to Fletcher (Joel Keller), a friend from William's teenage years. Sweet William (Chris Leavins) arrives late after ten years in the city, where he has become thin, attractive, and openly gay. At home little has changed: his father Whiskey Mac (Peter MacNeill) is a drunken, abusive man who tends the flower garden rather than his family; his mother Iris (Seana McKenna) suffers in guilty silence; his grandmother Grace (Joan Orenstein) is senile and obsessively religious; and his chain-smoking, foul-mouthed sister Rosemary is as boisterous as ever.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [8](https://www.drjatthemovies.com/reviews/1997/hanging.htm)
**The flashback.** Ten years earlier, William was a 300-pound, closeted 15-year-old (played by Troy Veinotte) who was caught by his senile grandmother in sexual horseplay with Fletcher in the garden. His mother decided he needed healing and arranged for a woman to initiate him into heterosexual love. After these crises the teenager tried to hang himself from a tree in the garden.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [9](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1998/films/the-hanging-garden)
The film's signature device is that the hanging body remains visible: the image of William swinging from the tree, waiting to be cut free, is so real to his family that they still see it, and the adult William sees it too. Roger Ebert, longtime film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times*, described the premise as two versions of reality, one in which the boy hanged himself and one in which he ran away, with the 15-year-old's body still hanging in the garden when the 25-year-old returns.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hanging-garden-1998) A scholarly analysis by Jason Morgan of the [University of Calgary](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-calgary) reads the film as deliberately ambiguous about whether William survived his suicide and returned, a question the film leaves unanswered; Morgan also identifies a double meaning in the title, which refers both to the garden where William hung himself and, more obscurely, to the hanging gardens of Babylon, with connotations of sin that inform the film's treatment of William's homosexuality.[11](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape3/PQDD_0021/MQ55162.pdf)
In the present-day story, William is the only one who seems to have changed in ten years, and Fletcher, now about to marry Rosemary, is still interested in him. The reunion reawakens painful memories, and William must make peace with his past in order to carry on with his life.[9](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1998/films/the-hanging-garden) • [5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden)
## Style
Fitzgerald combined slice-of-life family drama with surreal fantasy, layering past and present so that the characters appear to live in all three at once. The Melbourne International Film Festival program noted his use of cinematic devices of character and structure: each character is named after a plant or flower, such as Rosemary, Iris, Grace, Violet, and Sweet William himself, and their scenes are framed in suiting colors. Fitzgerald said the rigid use of color and line and the pervasive flower metaphor suggest that even ordinary lives operate on a poetic level.[5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden) • [1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden)
The Canadian Film Encyclopedia credits the film's stunning photography by cinematographer Daniel Jobin, tight pacing, and a score featuring Ashley MacIsaac, Heather Rankin, John Roby, and Mary Lamond. The soundtrack includes fiddle music performed by Ashley MacIsaac, and the film carries touches of Nova Scotia such as step-dancing and boats.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/) • [12](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/09/13/films-northern-frontier/76a31265-b8f9-4a0c-acc5-e16663c83912/)
## Production
Fitzgerald spent his early years in New York and then relocated to Halifax to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; he spent eight years getting the film made, four of them full-time after quitting his job in 1993. The estimated budget was CA$1,500,000, and filming took place in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.[5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden) • [13](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/film-some-beefcake-for-the-honeymoon-a2236966.html) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/)
The cast mixes Canadian performers with the Australian actress Kerry Fox. [Sarah Polley](https://www.edgepedia.org/sarah-polley) plays the teenage Rosemary, and Christine Dunsworth plays the younger sister Violet, whom William has never met before his return.[1](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden) • [14](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hanging_garden/cast-and-crew) • [8](https://www.drjatthemovies.com/reviews/1997/hanging.htm)
## Reception and awards
At the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival the film won the People's Choice Award for Best Film and the award for Best Canadian Feature Film, the latter tied with *The Sweet Hereafter*; *Le Monde* reported the tie in its festival palmarès. It also won the Most Popular Canadian Film and Best Canadian Screenplay prizes at the 1997 Vancouver International Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Prize at Festróia in 1998, and Best Screenplay at the [Mar del Plata](https://www.edgepedia.org/mar-del-plata) festival.[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/awards/) • [3](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1997/09/18/le-palmares_3775815_1819218.html)
At the 1997 [Genie Awards](https://www.edgepedia.org/genie-awards), the film won four major prizes: Best [Screenplay](https://www.edgepedia.org/screenplay), Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for Peter MacNeill, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Seana McKenna, with Kerry Fox and Joan Orenstein also nominated in the supporting actress category and Fitzgerald nominated for direction.[2](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/awards/) • [5](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden)
**Critical response.** On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 94% Tomatometer from 16 reviews and a 72% audience score. Ebert gave it three of four stars, writing that "the heart of the movie is its insight into the way families are haunted by their own history," and placed it among recent Canadian films about dread secrets alongside *Exotica*, *The Sweet Hereafter*, and *Kissed*. Box office returns were modest: The Numbers records a domestic gross of $925,756 on an opening weekend of $45,830 in 5 theaters, while IMDb lists a worldwide gross of $24,909, a discrepancy between the two databases.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hanging_garden) • [10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hanging-garden-1998) • [6](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Hanging-Garden-The) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/)
The film is frequently cited as a key work of the so-called magic realism strand of Nova Scotia filmmaking, alongside *Margaret's Museum* (1996) and *New Waterford Girl* (2000), and it was featured in the documentary *Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche* (2004).[15](https://brill.com/display/book/9789401200141/front-4.pdf) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/)
## References
1. [The Hanging Garden, Canadian Film Encyclopedia (TIFF)](https://cfe.tiff.net/canadianfilmencyclopedia/content/films/hanging-garden)
2. [The Hanging Garden (1997) – Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/awards/)
3. [Le palmarès, Le Monde, 18 September 1997](https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1997/09/18/le-palmares_3775815_1819218.html)
4. [The Hanging Garden (1997), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0125128/)
5. [The Hanging Garden, MIFF Festival Archive](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/21613/the-hanging-garden)
6. [The Hanging Garden (1997) – Box Office, The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Hanging-Garden-The)
7. [The Hanging Garden, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hanging_garden)
8. [Dr.J At The Movies: The Hanging Garden](https://www.drjatthemovies.com/reviews/1997/hanging.htm)
9. [The Hanging Garden, International Film Festival Rotterdam 1998](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1998/films/the-hanging-garden)
10. [The Hanging Garden movie review, Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hanging-garden-1998)
11. [Jason Morgan, Perversion and National Subjectivity in English Canadian Cinema, University of Calgary thesis](https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape3/PQDD_0021/MQ55162.pdf)
12. [Film's Northern Frontier, The Washington Post, 13 September 1997](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/09/13/films-northern-frontier/76a31265-b8f9-4a0c-acc5-e16663c83912/)
13. [David Benedict, Some beefcake for the honeymoon, The Independent, 8 May 1998](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/film-some-beefcake-for-the-honeymoon-a2236966.html)
14. [The Hanging Garden – Full Cast & Crew, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_hanging_garden/cast-and-crew)
15. [Introduction, Brill volume on Canadian cinema](https://brill.com/display/book/9789401200141/front-4.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released 1995 to 1998*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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