A Fine Balancing Act: A Couple Rises Above Their Wasted Contemporaries

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2004)

Director Zack Braff co-stars in this film. He has a sure but still developing eye for sharp scenes, both in terms of setting and dialog. Not yet thirty, this is a guy to watch. (He's also a writer.)
Braff is sometime, mildly successful L.A. small screen actor Andrew Largeman. Long estranged from his suburban New Jersey family, he flies back for his mom's funeral (a short but hilarious scene). Before leaving for New Jersey we get a glimpse of his medicine chest which seems to have no room for a toothbrush-he's on very many meds, most apparently ordered by his psychiatrist dad, Gideon (Ian Holm).
"Large," as he's known, quickly connects with many of his old friends. Director Braff is on a potential slippery slope here. The "Came Home-I'm Sort of Successful-Hangin' Out with the Losers" is a familiar theme and when the setting is New Jersey the risk of unrecoverable caricaturization is virtually inevitable (as in "Clerks" and "Mallrats," neither of which did much for boosting out-of-state applications for local colleges). One of Large's old friends is a truly idiotic cop. Another two make a living digging graves, one supplementing his income by checking out coffins for valuables after the mourners depart. At a drug and alcohol immersion party, one guy - clearly out of touch with reality - sports a t-shirt with the logo, "I Love Newark." It's hard to imagine anyone hitting bottom harder than that.
What changes the direction of "Garden State" is Large's fortuitous encounter at a doctor's office with Samantha, "Sam," played with real sensitivity and depth by the remarkable Natalie Portman (I previously opined on IMDb that she deserved an Oscar for her short but harrowing portrayal of a Confederate widow in "Cold Mountain."). Here Sam has a medical problem which doesn't really affect her developing friendship and then romance with Large but she has a different issue - an inability not to lie about matters major and minor - that gives her character a quirky and original dimension.
Large uses his planned short visit home to address relationship issues with his dad. Gideon loves his son but in a very controlled, unemotional way. He wants to be a real dad and doesn't have a clue where to start at this late point. Ian Hom is excellent.
In the early part of the film Large projects a curiously flat affect, undoubtedly the sequela of the myriad pharmaceuticals that have unnaturally shaped his persona. As inner awareness, and Sam's company, leads him to question his reliance on meds. He abandons them, a courageous act, and from his subterranean psyche a repressed and almost joyful guy begins a slow and imperfect emergence.
"Garden State" shows a less than attractive part of N.J. On my side of the Hudson there are more New Jersey than blond jokes. What makes this story rise above well-worn satire about immature adolescents transforming themselves into immature young adults is Large's and Sam's relationship. Sam and Large are great together.
The ending is both convincing and heartwarming (I know that sounds sappy but that's exactly how I felt).
Seated three seats from me was a very pretty young woman with a t-shirt proclaiming "New Jersey-Only the Strong Survive." In "Garden State" Sam and Large are strong enough to handle their past and face their future.
8/10