Fireflies in the Garden is a 2008 drama film starring Willem Dafoe, Ryan Reynolds, and Julia Roberts. Written and directed by Dennis Lee, the film premiered at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival and released theatrically in the United States on October 14, 2011.
Set in the present with extensive flashbacks to the past, this film revolves around two generations of an extended family domineering father, English professor Charles Willem Dafoe, his wife Lisa Julia Roberts, their son Michael young Cayden Boyd adult Ryan Reynolds and daughter Ryne Shannon Lucio as well as Lisas much younger sister Jane young Hayden Panettiere adult Emily Watson, her husband Jimmy George Newbern, their son Christopher Chase Ellison and daughter Leslie Brooklynn Proulx. Included in the family mix is Michaels exwife Kelly CarrieAnne Moss.Charles and Michael had, and still have, a strained relationship, with both pushing the other. In a flashback to a boyhood road trip, the younger Michael claims to have lost his glasses, while knowing he simply has them in his pocket. Without knowing this deceit, Charles makes Michael walk home in the rain as a punishment. This titfortat and rulebreaking continues with Charles imposing on all around him, including Jane, who is staying with them. She, too, hates Charles domineering nature. The two form a kind of pact against Charles. When Michael embarrasses Charles in front of his colleagues by falsely claiming to have written a poem, Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost, he is punished by having to hold his weighted arms horizontal, aching so much that at the end, he cannot even take food to his mouth. Jane feeds him. As they grow older the conflicts escalate, with a growing Michael eventually intervening in a quarrel between his parents, attacking Charles and forcing him to the ground. ........
Source: Wikipedia