Beauty in the Breakdown

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2004)

I told my friend as we were walking out of the theater that it was an A- movie. After sitting with it for a few hours I have upgraded it to an A. Many movies suffer from giving away too much in the trailers. Why do I want to see a movie when I can predict everything that is going to happen? This movie, however, suffers a bit from the opposite. There has never been a trailer that has sucked me in the way that one did. It was so visually appealing and left so much to the imagination. I imagine that any movie that fits around those beautiful scenes is going to be somewhat disappointing. However, the extremely high expectations that I had going in were met for the most part. Garden State, like great movies before it such as High Fidelity and Beautiful Girls, wrestles with accepting a flawed reality rather then searching for a non-existing fantasy. This movie took this a step further I believe. It asks it's characters to embrace reality rather then simply accepting it. I would like to quote Nat's character Sam, but having only seen the movie once, I would butcher the line. She encourages Largeman to be able to laugh at himself. The other main character Mark says that He is "okay with being unimpressive". We don't know if he believes himself or not, but he is only 26 and in no hurry to figure it out. This theme runs through all the character, young and old and I found it to be well done. Much of the story revolves around Largeman and Sam, with frequent appearance from Largeman's friend Mark. I have found with movies similar to this one, the characters are much more important to my enjoyment of the film then the story is. I thought Zach Braff did a great job of creating these characters and the acting was outstanding. The dynamic between Sam and Large was great. Two complex character finding their way into each other's lives. I found the character of Mark to be quite intriguing. He was likable and dis-likable at the same time. The real winner here was Natalie Portman's, Samantha. This is what we knew she was capable of when we watched Beautiful Girls, before George Lucas got ahold of her. Her character was funny and sweet and fragile and just all around beautiful. Zach Braff wrote a great character and Portman really pulled it off. This movie has a lot of great moments, but It didn't have one moment for me when I knew I would love this movie for a long time. That is what may keep this movie out of my top three. There are a lot of great moments, but just not that one for me. The movie also didn't have a slow moment for me either. Some other movies like Eternal Sunshine or Lost in Translation that I really liked had portions of the movie that dragged. I didn't get that with Garden State though. The movie moved from really funny moments to really beautiful moments with with ease. All in all, a very impressive debut from a young and talented film maker. I am a bit biased because I may be the biggest Scrubs fan out there, but I give this movie an A and look forward to more from Zach Braff and Natalie Portman in the future.