Individuality at its best

Rating: 7/10 (13 August 2008)

There is no perfect 'one sure way' to capture any audience member, from young to old and male to female. Many men enjoy an action packed real thrilling start to any film, and then ladies enjoy a more love, slow and passionate movie. The creative thing about Garden State is that it starts off with an interesting 'lost' start to the movie, the film starts with the creative and interesting Andrew Largeman (Zac Braff) inside an aeroplane then all of a sudden the plane starts to malfunction and everyone is panicking except for Andrew. This part of the film portrays Andrew to be out of the ordinary and different to most people, soon enough we find out that Andrew is pumped up on drugs which force him to be very neutral and non-motivated. Andrew then awakes from this dream to the noise of his phone tuning into voice mail from his father. His father is informing Andrew that his mother had passed away and that he would like Andrew to come home for the funeral. Andrew finds himself back in his home town. He meets up with some of his old mates from school and gets invited to a party. This party is a wild drug teen party that Andrew does not look like he had ever experienced. Andrew takes some kind of drug and it sends him spinning all through the night.
Sam (Natalie Portman) did a terrific job in this film, she meets Andrew in a hospital, when he soon finds out that she has an compulsive lying problem. The two hit it off right from the start, her attention drawing personality keeps the viewers engaged while Andrew is just the watchmen and seeming like a very hard thinker. He watches and analysis everything without changing the emotion on his face, the sound actor also stars in the hit T.V series 'Scrubs' where he plays a linking roll to this film as a doctor.
Sam and Largeman create a different atmosphere when they are together, while when Largeman is alone he seems a lot more depressed and lonely. Largeman's doctor is also his controlling father which twists the film somewhat. Zac also chose the music in this film and won an award for it. "The songs I used in this film were just picked out because they were the ones affecting my life at the time" said Braff.
This film was awesome because of it's individuality towards the whole main stream 'look on life', I would recommend this film to anyone who is looking for something different to watch. I give it a 7/10, but a very well done film and very enjoyable to watch.