By Madison Rutherford

The Gardener, in theaters this Friday, April 17, 2026, explores powerful and complex facets of the human experience – grief, healing, and self-discovery – using the extended metaphor of a living garden.

Starring Radha Mitchell, William Miller and David Andrews, The Gardener marks filmmaker Dabney Day’s feature directorial debut. “The Gardener has lived with me for many years – not simply as a project but as a presence asking for patience and trust in timing,” she says. “It wasn’t something I could rush or force… It needed to be tended, much like the act of gardening itself.”

The film follows Sabena Weathers (Mitchell) as she fights to preserve her family’s cosmetics empire after the loss of her husband and father. Seeking refuge, she retreats to a remote cottage in the mountains, where a chance encounter with the property’s gardener sparks an unexpected journey of transformation and truth. The overarching themes of fate and serendipity are woven into the fabric of the project – and started long before filming began.

“I was in Australia and would spend a lot of time walking in the botanical gardens in Melbourne… I was chatting with a friend one day, and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if somebody made a film about women who gather around a garden space and, in that project, heal their lives?’” Mitchell says. “About a week later, in my inbox came this invitation to be part of a project called The Gardener.”

Day had been developing the story and script for nearly three decades. For Andrews, it was a full-circle moment. In 2024, he reached out to the White Lotus Foundation, a wellness center in Santa Barbara, where he had received yoga teacher training more than 30 years prior. “I lost my certificate and had not talked to these people in 30-something years… I reached out, and on April 8, I received my certificate. On April 5, I had gotten an email from my manager that I was being offered a script for a movie called The Gardener,” he explains. When he read the script, Day’s name triggered a sense of distant recognition. “I go, ‘I don’t know why this name is familiar to me,’ I couldn’t place it, but I decided to do the film,” he says. “A couple of days later, I get an email from Tracy, who was one of the people who ran the White Lotus Foundation, saying, ‘I’m so glad to hear that you’re considering doing Dabney’s film… Dabney’s one of my oldest friends.” Andrews realized he had worked with Day at Universal Studios in the early 1990s, when she was doing product placement for film marketing campaigns. “We became friends,” he says, “But eventually we lost touch, so I hadn’t talked to her in at least 30 years, and then I get this film, and it’s the same Dabney Day.”

While the garden symbolizes growth and renewal, the film also speaks to eco-conscious viewers and those drawn to sustainability, offering a message that goes beyond communing with nature to emphasize human connection as well. Mitchell notes it will be especially healing for people “who aren’t in a garden right now, maybe they’re in an apartment in a city, and they want to immerse themselves in a natural experience.” She adds that the languid, “lullaby-like” pace of the film allows audiences time and space to reflect. “It’s a story that allows you to contemplate your own life,” she says. “It kind of opens portals into the self… and I hope that the audience feels comfortable enough after seeing the film, to engage with each other, that there’s an opportunity to talk to the person next to you.”

The Gardener was filmed in the forests of North Carolina, an area known for its lush, high-rainfall temperate broadleaf forests and rich biodiversity, surrounded by abundant greenery, cascading waterfalls and wildlife, which Mitchell says added to the magic and authenticity of the film. “We were in this beautiful location… the house we were in was built by an artist couple, and it looked like a gingerbread house from a fairytale,” Mitchell says. “It really feels made by hand, in the sense that friends put their houses in it, friends showed up, and people from 30 years ago reconnected. This was something that [Day] needed to put into the world, and it’s very much a collaboration of people that really care about the story.”