An enjoyable journey down Garden State.

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2006)

As a major fan of 'Scrubs', I was mainly interested in 'Garden State' for Zach Braff. I was pleasantly surprised by this engaging comedy/drama.
Braff (who also writes and directs) plays Andrew Largeman, an aspiring actor who goes back to his hometown of Jersey after his paraplegic mother dies. Andrew's life is a mess; he works as a waiter in a Vietnamese restaurant, and has been taking various forms of medication since he was a young boy, which have left him emotionally numb.
Not surprisingly, Braff plays it much straighter as Andrew as he does with his 'Scrubs' character J.D. After the funeral, he catches up with all his friends at a party, and finds they've all settled in different ways: one's a grave-digger, while another one invented "silent velcro", and is content to live off his riches. The next morning Andrew visits a local doctor for his lightningnheadaches. While in the waiting room, he meets Sam (Natalie Portman). A former ice skater, she turns out to be just as unbalanced as he is, (if a little more kookier) and they hit it off immediately.
From there the movie follows Andrew's final few days in Jersey, as he bonds with Sam, with his "best" friend Mark (Peter Sarsgard) tagging along, and tries to repair his tattered relationship with his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). This movie is essentially a "journey down the road of life" film, which takes a more relaxed pace by bending the traditional three-act story structure. Andrew and Sam are both flawed, but also have endearing personalities (Sam has bad luck keeping family pets alive), and by the end, you're left with a feeling that there's hope for them yet.
Overall, this is an enjoyable movie about reconnecting with lives left behind in order to forge new ones.