Good downbeat film that's not perfect,but so what?

Rating: 8/10 (29 January 2007)

HYper-depressed writer/actor Andrew Largeman(ZAck Braff,writer and director here)flies home from LA to New Jersey(hence the title)for his mother's funeral after she dies accidentally from a mishap that has a longer,attached story to his life. When he returns home,he finds that much of what he left behind didn't change all that radically,except that most of who he knows is older and somewhat more pathetic. To top that off,his therapist father(Ian Homl,perfect here)is even MORE of a cold,detached professional that he remembered. The return home seems to be a mere exercise of expectations than a true healing or revelation,save for the fact that he meets by chance a slightly unhinged free-spirit named Sam(NAtalie Portman,maybe a little TOO chipper and breezy for this).
This film may lack energy,or have some internal logic weaknesses(Andrew's relationship,or lack thereof,with his family,starting with his mother seems to be somewhat sloppily explained),but there seems to be an almost matter-of-fact,laid-back sense of dark comedy that makes this film refreshingly different from cookie-cutter type action/comedy/thriller/whatever. The film seems to be more interested in letting the viewer "breathe in" the atmosphere of loneliness and detachment of the characters,particularly Andrew,for whom it seems both appropriate yet sad that he was so alienated by his own flesh-and-blood that he left them behind for the other coast and never really looked back for a whole decade. THis may be how comedy in films really SHOULD be more like:human,relaxed and not always pretty. Most of the acting is standard,neither great nor terrible,with the exceptions being Braff,Holm and Peter Skaarsgaard as a fairly depressed and slightly off former neighborhood and childhood friend. This would be another "Palate-cleanser" movie for someone who';s renting or seeing a spate of large scale,intensity films(say, between viewings of a SAw movie and a POTC or LOTR film)and it's a nice debut for Scrubs' Braff.