Qualified success

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2005)

Garden State gets off to a great start, both funny and melancholy, it does live up to the promise of being a 'Graduate' for the new century. Overall the film is finely tuned, nicely observed and well acted but it teeters on the edge of self indulgence. Perhaps if I didn't know that Zach Braff was the director and writer as well as the actor I'd just presume that the director had a bit of a crush on him - unfortunately, that knowledge casts a whole new light on the proceedings and I found myself watching a 'look how talented and lovely I am' show reel. By no means is this a bad film but I found an element of self-consciousness in a number of the scenes and when n it tries to be kooky (stand up Ms Portman) I felt that it needed the touch that Hal Hartley bought to his early films. On the strength of this I guess that Braff is going to make a terrific film soon but I din't think this is it