If You're a 20-Something Navel-Gazer, This is the Film for You.

Rating: 3/10 (28 October 2008)

Every once in awhile the critics will get behind a truly mundane and insipid film; Garden State would be your pitch-perfect example. Many of us have long-awaited the death of this tired trend of making movies about boring, middle-class 20-somethings, doing nothing while using the same lame jokes and interacting with their merry band of local buddies. Fortunately, there is a top rate cast who turns in excellent performances, and some very pretty set pieces. However, Braff uses every film-school trick in the bag and almost every comic cliché imaginable (yes, we know, a dog humping your leg can be absolutely hilarious), in order to elevate the film to a watchable level. Not even the first-rate soundtrack is able to accomplish this. One of the reasons a film like The Graduate (which this film steals heavily from), made the impact it did was because it was making a statement on generational differences and the boredom that can come with an upper-class lifestyle and the suffocating expectations that can come with it. Garden State doesn't seem to aspire to deal with issues anywhere near this big, but simply seems content to divert your attention with pop tunes and hangdog looks from its characters until it can get to its protagonist's final monologue, which is clearly the strongest point of the film.