A not so fertile garden

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2006)

I waited to see Garden State for three reasons: The incredibly good trailer, I'm a "Scrubs" fan and the soundtrack contains my favorite artists.
When I finally got to see it I was a bit let down. The second scene where we get to see Andrew on his bed felt too obvious and frankly, a little fake. Even if you're completely numb your bed isn't straight and wrinkle-free after you get in it, and I really don't think the character had the presence of mind to fix it after he got under the covers. I think the medical cabinet scene illustrated much better this man's life.
Some of the characters struck me as fake after their first appearances, with the exception of Peter Sarsgaard (why isn't this guy the most sought out actor in Hollywood?) and Ian Holm. Natalie Portman was good, too, but she seemed a little stiff while delivering some lines, "Great job, man" sounded stiff and too scripted to me. Other than that detail she was great.
It's pretty obvious the screenplay was written by a man. A woman would never write a character like Sam because we've seen far too many characters under the label of "quirky-cute-girl-next-door" that suddenly change our lives, but Portman managed to keep us wanting more of her character. But one detail still haunts me: what does Sam see in Large? It's easy to see why he falls for her, but what about the girl? Why is she so interested in this guy? Is it the old 'opposites attract' formula? Is it because he doesn't question her? Is it because she likes the idea of saving people? Ron Liebman makes a good job as Dr. Cohen, and he's always a pleasure to watch. But it also felt like Ian Holm was making a cameo. After his first real talk with his son he seemed to have so much repressed anger I thought his eyes could kill, and I definitely wanted to see more of that. Unfortunately the rest of his scenes came out as 'let's remember he has a father,' and the final "confrontation" scene could've been so much more if Holm had been allowed to talk. Instead his son blurts out everything he feels and the psychiatrist father just listens to him, looking like a million thoughts were racing in his mind. What were those thoughts? Why didn't we get more from this character? The direction was purely Braff. I've seen the episodes he's directed on "Scrubs" and recognized some resources such as the use of speed, cameras disappearing into the sky/the bottom of the quarry while still framing the characters, and the camera in motion, like in the reception of the funeral scene.
There are a few visual gags that really work but others seem a little too forced, like the dog pleasuring himself at Sam's house. What is it with this movie and horny dogs? Apparently Andrew brings that out on them, because there always seem to be a dog humping his leg, jumping him or masturbating in front of him. The scene when he gets out of his car to get to work and sees the gas thing on his car seemed a little extra. We know this character is numb, we saw it on his dream, on his bed, on his medical cabinet, on his lack of reaction after finding out his mother is dead. The pills were a good idea but never fully developed, and Andrew 'Large' Largeman reminds us at least 3 or 4 times why he's so numb: the medical cabinet scene, at his consultation with Dr. Cohen, on the fireplace scene and when he finally talks to his father. They may seem necessary, but it was almost as if he was feeding the viewer into details we already know but some characters didn't. It's understandable why Samantha didn't know, but his high school friends must have noticed this before.
I had a big problem with the ending. It seemed contradictory. The movie is supposed to be about finally taking control of life by embracing our realities, yet the whole "what do we do" thing (and the fact that he repeated that line) seemed out of context, along with the fact that for some reason Sam was in luggage check-out. I could interpret that as "taking your luggage and go do what you came here to do" but it had a problem that is the Golden rule of film-making: keep it real. It also seemed to fall under the Hollywood system, something the movie had avoided until the last scenes.
Braff intended this to be a modern version of the Noah's Ark story, when you gather everything you need to start a new life, but he didn't seem to gather enough to start over. He just got started, and that's not Noah's Ark, that's just making up your mind.
I can see why some people compare this to "The Graduate", but it's far from being it's new fresh version. Braff is no Dustin Hoffman and no Mike Nichols. The main difference is that Nichols can do a masterful job at portraying human behavior while Braff leaves the characters at being quirky just for the sake of making a funny off-beat movie. But hey, it's his first big feature and he did a good job. Yet some of the sequences came out as Braff mouth-feeding the audience.
I expected the music to be better used, but it seemed to be there just for the sake of using it, except for the orgy and the airport scene. And I definitely like The Postal Service's original version of 'Such Great Heights' which was used in one of the trailers, but that's just a matter of taste. The movie is easy on the eyes (perhaps too easy) but it lacked development in many areas. Still, it'll leave you thinking about some issues.