Wonderful Soundtrack, OK Film

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2004)

Andrew Largeman comes home to New Jersey after nine years of estrangement from his family. He has been numbed by drugs that render him immune to all emotion, yet decided to purposely forget his medication for his mother's funeral. Life lessons ensue about finding yourself as well as making that one connection with the person you are desperately trying to find.
The film has a promising premise, and succeeds on many levels. For first time writer/director/star Zach Braff, this was an exceptional first outing. Having the talent to write and direct a film as involved as this is an achievement with the experience he has. His musical selections were wonderful, fitting each scene with the right amount of emotion, and enough zeal to be part of the scene, yet not distracting from the story.
That being said, the film is also less successful on other levels. Being a first time director, Braff must learn not to jump around from shot to shot so much for it ended up making the film feel very choppy. The ending scene to this film is one particular case, where the song sung by Frou frou holds the quick camera shots together, as they jump from one to another.
Braff had so much to take care of on this film as well, that he should have casted someone else for the part of Andrew Largeman. The emotion that he does eventually show comes off as fake anyway, and the audience is supposed to think he's finally experiencing some kind of emotion. But due to his still weak acting skills, you can aways tell that Braff is acting, or simply repeating the lines off of a screenplay he wrote.
Natalie Portman, the big name in the cast, was also unfortunately miscast int his film. To be in a film like this, there must be two ordinary people who make a connection and become something together. With this film, Portman's beauty distracts the people from the relationship between Samantha and Andy, not to mention the strange appeal there is of seeing Braff and Portman together as a screen couple. She does what she can, however, and turns in a decent performance as Samantha.
Braff truly has a career in the making with this film, however. Though not perfect, it is one step in the road to a hopefully successful career. With more improvement, Braff could indeed be one of the next top directors/writers in the business. Film recommended for the awesome music choices and intriguing story.
MJR