Clerks meets The Graduate

Rating: 8/10 (21 August 2004)

A mish mash that in certain ways reminded me of Clerks (the suburban slice of life stuff), The Graduate (all those close-ups of Zach befuddled by his surroundings), maybe Easy Rider (the grungy quest), and I'm sure a few others out there. Braff returns home for mom's funeral after long absence, hangs with deadbeat friends, meets Portman, tries to sort out life. As we go along layers are stripped off each main character. Slice of life is good stuff for me, but when it gets too quirky too often it becomes cute rather than real, I would vote we got close but never quite went over the line. Braff is fine in reactive role, took me a while to warm up to Portman and to buy the leads' chemistry but I was becoming a believer towards the end. There's no real good way to wrap one of these up, this finishes a little awkwardly but all is well. 8 out of 10