Pretty good movie overall

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 2011)

I'm a girlie teenager. I'm into romantic and the high school drama kind of movies still. Once I heard, "Garden State" the first thing I thought was a movie talking about medical issues and political experiments, all that boring things. I was surprised with how much I ended up enjoying this movie and how it was the complete opposite of what I expected it to be.
The movie starts with the male lead lying down in the bed; this personally gave a complete spin to my head. Once I saw Zach Braff, I was like "hey let's give this movie a try!" If you've seen scrubs, you would have reacted the same way. Since Zach's character makes you laugh too much in every episode and in this movie it was no different. He has the lead as the guy who has not come home since he was young until the day of his mother's death, and that's when he starts realizing much stuff from his past or how he can have a better future here now that things are about to spice up. Apart from all of that, I was really interested in this film once I heard he had written and directed it too. This made me wonder many things! For example, does the story have anything to do with his personal life? I believe this is a story of man who is growing up mentally and transforming himself due to the romance he is experiencing. That's when Natalie Portman comes to hand with her cute but adventurous character. She's my favorite thing in the story! And who would have thought two persons who met at the doctor's office would fall in love? (I wouldn't mind having a love story like that!) Sam was of much help in Andrew's life. She was a sign of hope and faith. Andrew had left New Jersey because of family issues, and was an actor out of state. His most important contribution was as a "retarded quarterback" in a cable movie. This right away made me think "Did he really like to be remembered as retarded?" It's not something to be proud of (If he was Brad Pitt it would be complete different story!). The moment he comes back home to his mother's funeral, you can see a person that has no feelings and is totally numb to what is going around him mainly because of the medications. After that scene, when he decided to meet up with his old friends and starts doing drugs, drinking and hanging out with younger girls you can totally catch how even though he is 26, he is not mature enough to know what he wants and basically just does what he is told. But once he meets Sam, he starts speaking up for himself, saying the truth behind himself and his mother and telling his dad he's no longer a child to follow his orders. At the end, once he was about to head back to Los Angeles I couldn't figure out if he was actually going to go or stay. But he realized life couldn't get any better, he had found love, and had ended up being a complete different person. You may think this is like any other movie, where one person is trying to find himself and ends up falling in love but something that can be "welcome, in that it's true to life and different from most movies." like Mick LaSalle said is how "Andrew is not in a romantic frame of mind, and so Andrew and Sam get to know each other as friends before there's any physical contact." This shows how love without sex is possible and most importantly is a lesson to most teenagers in today's life. Zach Braff did a good job doing this, he made a movie many thought would be no different to others into something completely new.
Overall, like Robert Ebert said, "This is not a perfect movie; it meanders and ambles and makes puzzling detours." but if you take a moment to see it, you'll clap for Zach Braff's job. Do I recommend this movie? Of course! If I was able to appreciate it, I'm sure many people would too (and no I'm not saying it to get a better grade!).