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GREENFINGERS Send This Review to a Friend
(Opens July 27) With prison reform taking second place these days to a throw-away-the-key attitude, it is refreshing to see "Greenfingers," a warm, human prison tale that celebrates the potential of rehabilitation. Like the flowers that bloom in the British prison garden, the men incarcerated in the minimum security prison in the Cotswolds also grow in the direction of redemption. An appealing cast puts a further bloom on writer-director Joel Hershman's high-spirited film inspired by a real situation recounted in Paula Deitz's 1998 New York Times article titled "Free to Grow Buebells in England."
For starters there is handsome Clive Owen, whose sturdy talent became apparent in "Croupier." Here he plays Colin, an inmate whose crime that he refuses to speak about has led him to feel that life is over. His good behavior has resulted in his being sent to an honor-system prison. At first he rejects the kindly friendship of his elderly roommate Fergus, a fatally-ill lifer incarcerated for murder. David Kelly, fondly remembered for his performance in "Waking Ned Devine" plays Fergus endearingly. You'd never know that he murdered three wives as a result of alcoholism, but that's part of the point. The wisdom he has acquired helps him prod Colin into having a go with gardening under the kindly eyes of the prison governor (Warren Clarke). Unsurprisingly, the press and the politicians are looking askance at the prison experiment as being too soft.
Although actual prison gardening is at the root of "Greenfingers," story credibility is not its strong point. That doesn't matter much here in view of the film's overriding other qualities. For one thing, it is sheer pleasure to see Helen Mirren's performance as Georgina Woodhouse, the dynamic expert on gardening who is smitten by the achievements of the prisoners and sponsors their entry into the prestigious Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Mirren is a show unto herself. It so happens that Georgina has a daughter named Primrose, portrayed by attractive Natasha Little, and sparks between her and Colin are kindled, something hardly counted upon by Georgina.
The complications mount, but "Greenfingers" is so seductively good-natured that one becomes more amused than skeptical when the plot is being stretched to the limit. You can't help but root for these felons, one of whom insists he's innocent and another of whom makes no bones about having killed We eventually learn why Colin has been suffering as a result of his deed. Society needs all the prodding it can get for the idea that rehabilitation is possible, at least in many cases, just as the socially-minded experts have long believed. The film is loads of fun as entertainment, and with any luck it may also make some rethink such vengeful ideas as three strikes and you're out, and worse, capital punishment, under which the heroes of this film might all have been executed had they been in Texas instead of Britain. A Fireworks Pictures-Samuel Goldwyn Films release.
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