25 year-old Sweet William (Chris Leavins), a once fat and self-hating teen, ran away from home at age 15. Basically his only other alternative was suicide. Ten years later he returns to attend his sister Rosemary's (Kerry Fox) wedding. He's happy with his new life, a well-adjusted gay man with a partner, steady work, and a trim body. Haunted by his past miserable adolescence, being back at home revives all of his awful memories: overeating because it's the one thing nobody can stop him from doing; being hit by his drunken and abusive father Whiskey Mac (Peter MacNeill); and his mother arranging for him to have sex with a woman while she sat in the next room. As a gay, obese teenager (played by Troy Veinotte), William was caught having sex with his bisexual friend Fletcher (Joel S. Keller) in the garden by his grandmother when he was 15. Rosemary is marrying Fletcher. In the movie, both the adult and teen-age William, hanging as a fresh corpse in the garden, interact. In the version of reality where William dies, his family members cannot shed their memories of his death, whereas in the other version William is haunted by memories of his father's abuse and is unable to reconcile with him. Also, a new family member Violet (Christine Dunsworth) is revealed to have been fathered by William, because William's mother Iris (Seana McKenna) took him to a prostitute in an attempt to "cure" his homosexuality. In the garden where he may or may not have made a tragic decision as a teen, past and present mingle, the eyes of statues move, and everything drips with rain. The story is a surrealistic mix of fantasy (he commits suicide) and reality (he leaves and starts a new life). William must take care of his drunken father and then help organize a search for his missing mother. Interestingly, Fletcher, who's rejection almost led to William's suicide, is now very attracted to the handsome and sexy former childhood friend.
This darkly comic melodrama is about Sweet William and his family, in which everyone is named after a plant. The film is convoluted, contrived, and confusing, but enjoyable and entertaining, with subtle acting performances. With the background of Celtic music combined with beautiful camera work, the image of a garden as the family and a flower as an individual is nicely done. John Roby composed the music, and Thom Fitzgerald wrote the script and directed.
