Promising but not the genius it's been heralded

Rating: 3/10 (15 January 2005)

GARDEN STATE (d. Zach Braff, 2003, USA)
If Zack Braff's directorial debut is to be believed many of America's twenty- somethings are aimlessly dragging their heels from adolescence to the grave - and can only manage to do so with a strong dose of pharmaceuticals, either officially prescribed or illicitly obtained (and a cool soundtrack).
Not that this is the message the uplifting trailer for Garden State sells us.
After a much lauded reception at last year's Sundance the now expected indie hype has been used to usher audiences to Garden State clearly positioning it as the latest generation's take on early-life crisis.
Braff himself plays 26-year old Andrew 'Large' Largeman, a man kept in the state of a spaced out kid via heavy doses of lithium prescribed by his psychiatrist father.
A trip back home, to New Jersey - America's Garden State, from LA for his mother's funeral serves as an excuse to leave the pills at home, while hooking up, somewhat non-committally, with old college mates starts off as a route to pills of another sort.
But the 'slacker-may-care' attitude of drugs, driving and doggy-paddle can't quite ring true when presumably in a state of lithium withdrawal Large makes his declaration of love to the compulsive liar, epileptic Sam (Natalie Portman in her first real post-puberty role).
Something seems to have been lost in the transatlantic translation process, as far from being a 2004 take on the Dazed and Confused mindset what comes over clearest is a set of well crafted cinematic images inside a cobweb of a plot following an indie cool agenda to tackle love, hate, relationships, ambition and the difficulty of actually feeling the events that life throws at us all.
While Large's dependence on anti-depressants, his best friend's decision to take the cocaine option to small town living and the new love of his life's epilepsy, to reduce Garden State to a picture purely about managing life via drugs is admittedly a little harsh.
What Braff's brave writer/director/star showpiece loses in a weak storyline he more than makes up with a keen eye for what images shine on the screen. The much reproduced picture of him wearing a shirt stood in front of matching wallpaper is just one (all too briefly mind) example. But a crane shot of a swimming pool, a swooping shot of a possibly bottomless ravine and a blazing open fire in an unfurnished ballroom give strong hope for what Braff might deliver if given the right material, and possibly if he were to drop some responsibility and take a step behind the camera.
To say that the journey of Garden State's 26-year old 'hero' offers a radically different set of footsteps to another young man who's life is also playing out in cinemas at the moment (Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator) would be to kick at a dangerous wasps nest of the differences between the aspirations of two very different eras. So it will go unsaid
What seems sure though is that we do have another young talent to watch - and another debut star who may rise, or collapse, under the pressure to deliver a snazzy second feature.