Editing The Hanging Garden (film) (section)

==Plot==

The film's central character is Sweet William, as both a thin adult and a fat teenager. Its plot hinges on a fateful incident from his teenage years, when his grandmother caught him attempting to have sex with his bisexual friend Fletcher, involuntarily outing him to his dysfunctional family as [[gay]].

As a consequence of the ensuing rejection, particularly by his alcoholic father Whiskey Mac, Sweet William faced the difficult decision of whether to run away to live in a big city far away from his family, or to commit [[suicide]] by hanging himself from a tree in the family garden. The film's themes about the duality of life and death, and the way seemingly very different choices in life can lead to similar outcomes, are portrayed through [[magic realism]] in the film's depiction of a complex merged reality in which William appears to have successfully made both choices at the same time.<ref name=magical>"Magical Garden: Thom Fitzgerald used creative thinking to nurture debut feature that opens Perspective Canada series". ''[[Toronto Star]]'', September 5, 1997.</ref>

The film is told as a [[triptych]]. In the first segment, set in the present, the adult Sweet William has returned home to rural Nova Scotia for the first time since leaving ten years earlier, to attend the wedding of his sister Rosemary to Fletcher. However, upon his return, he makes two unexpected discoveries: he can still see his younger selves living there and walking around the house, and he also has a new young pre-teen sister named Violet, whom he has never met because she was born after he left. The second segment, set in the past, tells the story of Sweet William's teenage years leading up to the critical decision, including his bond with Rosemary and their mother Iris's struggles to protect her children from Whiskey Mac's abuse, as well as revealing the truth of Violet's origins, before ending with Sweet William's suicide. Returning to the present, the final segment features both the living adult and dead teenage Sweet William present in the same reality{{spnd}}and the dead body is not just in his imagination, because the rest of his family can also see it still hanging from the tree.<ref name=variety>[https://variety.com/1997/film/reviews/the-hanging-garden-1117341167/ "The Hanging Garden"]. ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'', September 12, 1997.</ref>

According to Fitzgerald, "To every event in the film there are two interpretations. He left home and now he's back and his memory is haunting them. Or he did commit suicide when young and his homecoming is a fantasy?"<ref>"Filmmaker's money problems may end with new movie". [[Canadian Press]], September 7, 1997.</ref>