Garden variety

>> Good cast and story can't help Greenfingers from choking on its own tears

by SIOBHÀN O'CONNOR

When watching a film like Greenfingers--a feel-really-good British number about a bunch of hardened prisoners who soften up and bond over their impressive gardening projects--it's hard not to think that director Joel Hershman is asking for trouble. Not that it's controversial or upsetting (quite the opposite in fact), but because it's so damn corny. In high enough doses, corniness can eclipse any film's better qualities; in this case the slow-mo montage of five men gardening to Tears for Fears' "Sowing the Seeds of Love" was the tip off.

Based on a true story about a minimum-security prison's gardening project first reported in 1998 by a New York Times journalist, the material for the film is undoubtedly compelling. So are the actors, who were handpicked by the director to very satisfying results. Good performances abound and the story is engaging but the over-written, ponderous script coupled with the musical montages are enough to annoy even the most hospitable audiences.

Clive Owen offers a strong performance as the grumpy, clean-cut Colin, a lifer who won't tell anyone why he's in prison. His cellmate in the "open prison"--an experiment in Britain where long- and short-term prisoners were put together in minimum-security conditions to work--is the cancer-ridden and kind Fergus (David Kelley). Fergus is the conscience of the film, the old guy you feel for and who feels for everyone else--especially Colin. Intent on strengthening their burgeoning friendship, Fergus gives Colin a package of violet seeds that they plant together one brisk winter night. Much to their surprise, the flowers bloom the following spring and along with them, their friendship. When the warden finds out, being the closeted flower-lover that he is, he jumps at the chance to boost public opinion about the prison. He gives five prisoners a sizable plot on the prison grounds to make the most gorgeous garden they can. And they do.

It's not long before the warden gets the famous and sharp-tongued horticulturist Georgina Woodhouse (well rendered by the brilliant Helen Mirren) to stop by the prison to see the garden. Predictably, she loves it to bits and gets the men gardening with her in a kind of work-release program. Her daughter, Primrose (Natasha Little), is the romantic interest who gives Colin a reason to work for his parole. Many sweet scenes follow where we watch her give him the eyes while he digs through her mother's dirt. Without giving too much away, the tepid love story is just one of several underdeveloped subplots, all of which culminate with the men eventually entering the Royal Horticultural Society's garden contest.

While there's no shortage of enjoyable scenes here, the outing as a whole smacks of that new brand of fun-loving, triumph-over-adversity films coming out of England (see The Full Monty), where decent dialogue and a compelling plot are replaced by "Britishisms" that audiences are intended to find alternately quaint and outrageous. It's not a bad film--it's charming, entertaining and at times funny--but it's frustratingly cute, the kind of thing that would never work without the accents. Somewhere between making an interesting statement about the English penile system and Hollywood fantasyland, Hershman was obviously in love with the story. The sad thing is he didn't figure out how to do it justice.