Pretty good, with some reservations...

Rating: 6/10 (27 August 2004)

I wanted to see this at Sundance, but it was hard to get in to see this one. So it's been about 8 months that I've waited to see it...I tried not to have too high expectations, because usually when I really think a movie's going to be great, it ends up letting me down. I will say that I wasn't let down, and I enjoyed the story and the acting. It was a little hard to take Zach Braff seriously as I love him in "Scrubs"...but all I have to do is see his face and we start giggling. Every once in a while in this film, I saw "JD" instead of Large. But he did a great job in this film, as did Natalie Portman.
I don't want to go into too much detail, but I thought the movie was much too long. For example (POSSIBLE SPOILER) the party scene toward the beginning of the movie was a little too long and depressing. I got RIGHT AWAY that Large (the main character) was detached and not feeling anything. I'm not sure why the extended "drug use/spin the bottle/wild sex/anything goes" scene was needed...to me it just dragged. As the movie progressed, it was interesting to watch Large become more and more aware, to "wake up," so to speak, yet I still found that many scenes were not necessary or could have been edited. (SPOILER AGAIN) Also, did we REALLY need to see the hooker sex scene? I got the point when they showed the scumbags drooling as they watched through the peep holes.
In all, this is worth seeing, especially if you are a fan of Braff...and Ms Portman. The love story of the movie is rather sweet. I thought the title was clever, as well. Richard Roeper said that they had edited out about 15-20 minutes since he saw this at Sundance. I wish they had cut about 20 minutes more...then it would have been great...as it is, it's a good effort.