The art of simplicity is the quality that keeps most genres alive – and they do not get more delightfully simple than Greenfingers, a relatively obscure but still deeply charming British comedy by Joel Hershman, who tells the story of a quiet but sinister felon who is deemed suitable for a new experimental method of incarceration, being moved to a minimum security prison where he is to serve the rest of his sentence in much more pleasant surroundings, spending time with a group of equally eccentric prisoners who were all considered rehabilitated enough to be given a lighter, less-severe punishment – and along the way, he discovers that he has a gift for gardening, leading to the emergence of his “green fingers”, which momentarily helps put this quaint little penal colony on the map for reasons beyond that of the heinous crimes previously committed by the prisoners, who relish in the chance to prove themselves as functioning members of society, even when it takes a while for them to fully establish themselves as worthy of such credibility. Greenfingers is a peculiar little film – it has an absurd premise, but one that is supported by real-life events that may not have been as eccentric as this film, but were at least compelling enough to inspire this story, and its execution is not any less strange, with the tone that Hershman utilizes throughout the film being quite jagged and bizarre to those more cynical to the more enchanting aspects of the story, but also oddly captivating once it finds a particular rhythm, which happens quite early, once the story reaches the height of its momentum, which happens gradually but with a lot of great detail. There’s an elegance and charm to this film that propels it forward, and while it pales in comparison to other similarly-themed films from the time, it has enough merit to stand on its own, being as compelling and enticing a production as anything else produced during this era.

Greenfingers represents a very specific kind of British comedy we saw emerge between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, where there were entire films dedicated to exploring life in small villages and idyllic hamlets, which are populated by a wide range of eccentrics and oddballs, all of whom are endearing and very charming in ways that may be unrealistic but are at least very entertaining. If we were ever going to get a film that shows a more lighthearted, positive depiction of prison, it would come in the form of one of these captivating little comedies, which never take themselves too seriously, while still tackling more complex subject matter. Prison is rarely a source of humour, and most stories tend to take a more bleak and harrowing approach to explore the lives of felons – and unless it is a very clearly a case of someone innocent being falsely accused, or a work designed to focus on characters who are somehow less culpable in a particular crime, the approach is nearly always to be as serious as possible, or else risk being seen as needlessly flippant. It isn’t clear what Hershman, in his capacity as both the director and writer, was aiming for with Greenfingers, which is somehow as much as both prison reform as it is about the joys of gardening – and this combination would have been far less effective had it not been executed with a kind of effervescent joy that has seemingly been lost in the contemporary world. There’s a level of nuance and detail that drives a film like Greenfingers that we don’t even notice when looking at it from a distance – but the genuine emotions help compensate for the narrative shortcomings and the fact that this is a film that takes far too many leaps of faith to fully justify its existence, which is already quite tenuous when you consider how unrealistic some of the scenarios that define this film tend to be, and how the story overcomes them through nothing but pure heart and humour, which can mend just about any flaw in even the most lacklustre films.

Tonally, Greenfingers is a peculiar film when it comes to the tone and register of the story – and it certainly can’t be attributed to a particularly experimental director, since Hershman was not all that experienced, having only directed one prior film, the small-scale independent comedy Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, which was hardly an audacious debut despite trying to combine the elegance of screwball comedy with the more raunchy, disconcerting humour of the 1980s. It seems likely that the entire pitch for the film is also the impetus – a group of hardened felons (among them murderers, fraudsters and violent criminals) set aside their overly macho attitudes and take on the task of gardening, finding joy in the art of botany, which becomes their hobby, against their better judgement. This film is a product of its time, which was a period where it seemed perfectly feasible to make an entire comedy about archaic, outdated gender roles that had been shattered many times previously, but yet managed to be construed as the ultimate source of endless comedy – the idea of criminals doing something as delicate as gardening is certainly amusing, but only to a certain point, after which it can become quite tedious, which is where the film struggles the most since its voice is intrinsically tied to this outrageous approach to comedy. It also doesn’t help that Hershman is an American tasked with not only directing a British film, but writing in that register, and his understanding of the culture seems to be minimal at best – there are frequent uses of stereotypes that don’t necessarily make much of an impact either way, and the emphasis on themes that ultimately don’t amount to anything of value doesn’t help the film establish a solid narrative foundation, meaning that it works best if we view it as a series of vignettes, rather than a cohesive, straightforward narrative.

At the very least, Greenfingers is salvaged by the actors, who commit to bringing this story to life with perhaps slightly too much dedication, since none of them is doing particularly memorable work, except perhaps one or two of the actors. Clive Owen, who was steadily rising in the industry at the time, was a very promising actor that still had to take on smaller jobs to maintain some degree of credibility as a performer. His work in Greenfingers is interesting – he’s stoic and stone-faced and doesn’t do much in terms of either the comedy or the drama, being a rather unremarkable lead in terms of the emotional bandwidth of this performance. However, herein lies the brilliance, since in choosing to give a more subdued performance, Owen was able to counteract the more eccentric tone of the film that surrounds him, standing out more than he would’ve had he attempted to match the approach, which seemed far more logical in theory. Dame Helen Mirren seems to be working for the paycheque, turning in a performance that is very much the definition of the patrician older woman she was typecast into playing before receiving a career revival that positioned her as a much more interesting performer – and while she may not be all that interesting in the role, she is still solid, and brings the exact kind of off-kilter, slightly sinister charm that the part required. The only performance that feels genuinely excellent comes on behalf of the wonderful David Kelly, one of the most reliable actors to ever work in British cinema, a journeyman performer who was always capable of commanding the screen with any of his eccentric everyman performances. Greenfingers is far from an exception, and while it may not be the towering work of immense comedic brilliance that he had provided just two years prior in Waking Ned Devine (the film mainly responsible for the brief period where he played these scene-stealing roles), he is the emotional heart of this film, and likely the performance that will linger with us the longest, with his balance of humour and pathos being integral to the film as a whole.

Whether the viewer comes across Greenfingers as a result of a word-of-mouth recommendation, or simply stumbling upon it by accident (which was my initial experience with this film), you will likely have a memorable experience in one way or another. It’s undeniable that this is not the strongest effort on either a narrative or visual level – if anything, its storyline is hackneyed and the execution is weak at best, with the flimsiness of the production making it seem much cheaper than it likely was. Not to dismiss the approach taken by Hershman, or the talent that he seemingly possesses, but this film proves the value of hiring more seasoned directors – his work here isn’t bad but rather feels like a bundle of missed opportunities, a process where he just set out to strike every note in the most conventional, rote order imaginable, which would be understandable if he hadn’t also conceived of this film, spending time writing a screenplay that was filled with cliches and riddled with bizarre aspects that make it feel much less intriguing than it perhaps should have been. However, despite these clear shortcomings, Greenfingers is a very endearing film, the kind of straightforward, earnest comedy that has an equal blend of hilarious and heartbreaking moments, and while the humour isn’t all that funny, and the emotions are heavy-handed, it does feel relatively captivating once it hits its stride, which may happen too late and ends far too quickly, but at least helps account for the existence of this film, which felt like it had all the potential to join this long lineage of heartfelt British comedies, but instead falls just short of greatness, especially in the parts that would have been most easy to conquer with a more concise and meaningful approach.