lost it at the end

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2004)

Garden State is a noble effort, which occasionally touches greatness but then drops the ball in the last five minutes. I went to a screening of this movie in NY and greatly enjoyed myself. Zach Braff has a great eye and a truly wry and interesting sense of humor, both visually and with the dialogue. The banter is inspired, however, the longer speeches need some work. I don't want to give away the ending, but I will say that for such a strange and wonderful movie, which is one of the few that really taps into the weird ennui of being a twenty-something returning to your hometown, it turns oddly trite and emotionally unsatisfying in the final five minutes. As if he knew he only had a few minutes left of film and was trying to give the audience a satisfying ending. But it didn't fit. That said... Natalie Portman gives the best performance I've seen from her since her near perfect turns in Beautiful Girls and The Professional. Ian Holm was wonderful, as always. Zach Braff, ambitiously taking the helm as director, writer, and actor works ably at all three, and definitely has a long and prosperous future in whatever avenue he chooses. Overall, well worth seeing, I just wish Mr. Braff had the courage to trust his audience to understand the subtext and leave his characters with less explicitly spelled out at the end.