One of the Best Films since 2000

Rating: 10/10 (30 April 2005)

I don't believe I've ever seen a love story I've been able to like as much as Garden State.The movie is brilliantly acted,directed and told by Zach Braff.He plays the character of Andrew Largeman a struggling actor who only has one role to his credit which he is remembered for,which has type-casted him.He works as a waiter in a restaurant,and is very sad.He gets a call one day saying his Mother died.He heads out to the Funeral back in the town where he grew up.Where he meets up with his old High School friends and his Father.His friends are an odd bunch of characters,his close friend Mark doesn't have a job at all and is too lazy to find one.His career consists of collecting Desert Storm trading cards,and getting money falsely from returning products to Department stores.He does dig graves only to open the casket and steal jewelry.Andrew's Father Gideon prescribes Anti-Depressants to him because of the tragic final years of his wife's life.We find out Andrew's mother was much like her son,a sad person,Andrew feels he cannot live up to her wishes and pushes her into a counter making her confined to a wheelchair.Andrew since then has been having headaches,Gideon tells him to see a doctor.In the waiting room he meets Sam(Played by Natalie Portman in the best performance of her career) she is a friendly young woman.Andrew is attracted to her,he offers her a ride home.Sam isn't like anyone Andrew has ever known,she has had some tragic things happen to her because of her epilepsy,but she lives her life to her full.When she tells Andrew about a helmet she must wear to work she laughs like it is a joke.Andrew falls madly in love with Sam,and begins to rethink his own life in the process.
Garden State is a terrific movie.I haven't been able to relate to a character as well as I related to Andrew in a while.Natalie Portman without a doubt deserved an Oscar for her performance of Sam.You really feel a certain magic in it.The movie is brilliantly directed,and told.It's one of the few movies I've seen where I feel I'm actually with the characters and exiperencing the story.
A very high 10/10