Beautiful girls

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2009)

The plot of Zach Braff's film 'Garden State' resembles that of Jonathan Demme's 'Beautiful Girls' (and in fact, I wrote this comment without remembering that Natalie Portman features in both movies); a vaguely-artistic type returns to the town he grew up in, to find himself at a time when his life seems lost. Braff's vision of New Jersey is quirky but skilfully realised, and the acting isn't bad either. However, it's also an affluent, idealised world which seems to contain no cause for the characters' existential angst; while a back story is provided, explaining this in personal terms, there never seems to be any fundamental obstacle to an inevitable happy ending. The use of every pretty-dippy folk-pop song you've ever heard, to guide our moods through the plot, maybe hints at a certain weakness in the naked story. My other criticism with this film is that everyone looks beautiful. The use of good-looking actors is standard in movies, partly because everyone likes to see a pretty girl (or guy), but also because an actor of exceptional beauty can command the viewer's attention in the same way that someone we are really in love with does (regardless of their physical beauty) - in other words, we wouldn't necessarily fall for our own loved ones on screen (or at least, not so easily). This may be an acceptable trick, but a world where everyone is good-looking loses contact with reality. The result is a sensitive, well-acted drama with some original elements that nonetheless resembles an episode of 'Hollyoaks'. It's easy viewing, but also a tale of superficial darkness lying on an essentially bright world.