there is a certain beauty in simplicity...

Rating: Null/10 (4 September 2004)

yes, there is a certain beauty in simplicity...and some movies achieve this beauty without even trying. they are movies that are something so mundane, like going back to your hometown after so long for an event, say, a funeral. and the viewer is surprised to find that, while very simple, the movie manages to warm your heart in the sense that you can relate to it.
..then there are movies, like garden state, where some chump realizes that he can cash in on this type of movie. it's got the cliché shots from a birds-eye-view, it's got the relatives, who are supposed to be a little funny in the head, but it turns out are just milked out for all they're worth until they're goddamn crazy on the screen, (SPOILERS AHEAD) like the one who sews him the shirt. i mean really...it's got to take a MORON to not realize the shirt is the EXACT same color as the wallpaper. it's jokes like these...it's like, haha, yeah, but you understand that such a thing would never happen in real life and the writer is going over board trying to make you laugh. what really made me want to get up and leave is the dude fromt he store asking zach braff...'aren't you the guy who killed yourself...*smiles*...that wasn't you?' okay. now aside from being ridiculous and unrealistic, that's rude and almost an insult to the viewer. i think it would have been a trip if he had turned around and been like 'why yes i did kill myself a while back. see, i'm actually dead, you're just hallucinating.' this movie TRYED and TRYED to act all artsy and ahead of its time but it turned out that it just wasn't good enough. it was close, but no cigar. it was three fries short of a happy meal.