Quirky love story with panache

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2007)

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
This is a triumph for Zach Braff who directed, wrote, and also stars as Andrew Largeman who finds that love beats the holy heck out of lithium and assorted drugs bizarrely prescribed by his unfeeling father who just happens to be a shrink. Ladies and gentleman never let your father be your shrink.
I was quite taken with Natalie Portman who plays Sam who turns out to be Large's true love, and such a kinky, quirky, beautiful true love she is. Portman eschews beauty in every scene but manages to be cute and sweet and very emotionally evolved, which I liked. She is of course beautiful and brilliant as everybody knows, but here she tries something different. She strives to be ordinary and slight but with great emotive power. Nice performance.
The sound track which reminded this old guy of something from Simon and Garfunkel, and in fact there is a Simon and Garfunkel tune on it, was the sort of sweet, nostalgia-producing, alternative rock kind of sweet angst sound that lets you know that this is what youth is all about.
Largeman, wanna-be and somewhat successful/somewhat failed actor out on loan, comes home from the big city to rural New Jersey because his mother has died, unaccountable in a bathtub--which can happen if you are a paraplegic. He deals with a childhood tragedy and acquired guilt, meets his old buds, including Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) who is a full time slacker and part time dreamer and consummate doper. Largeman unveils his sidecar mobile--the only thing willed from his grandfather's estate--with its white star on combat green, and tools around town, parties a little and meets quirky Samantha who likes to tell lies as a kind of way to deal with the world. I knew a girl like that, only she only knew when she was lying--if somebody caught her. Sam figures it's a tick like Tourette's, and anyway her lies are harmless.
The movie is sweet and mildly comedic with some original shtick, and at times a bit of a tear-jerker. More than anything it's a touching love story, which I can never resist. And, yes, it's very New Jersey like Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, although no songs by them on the track. Oh, and Elizabeth Shue classmate of Braff's in high school.
See this for Zach Braff who put a lot of his emotional life into the film and deserves the accolades he's received.