a sometimes serious, sometimes silly film about dealing with life

Rating: 5/10 (25 August 2005)

I heard a lot of hype on Garden State, the film-making debut of actor Zack Braff, the star of the hit or miss TV show Scrubs. Mostly because I am a New Jersey boy, and a good number of my friends who saw the movie loved it. I saw it, and it pretty much met my expectations, nothing exceeding, but nothing to lower them either. Garden State is the story of Andrew Large, who gets off his overload of medication, as he goes back home to New Jersey from his would-be acting life for his Mother's funeral. There he runs into and has a couple of odd adventures with old friends (one being Stellan Sarsgard), a new one (Natalie Portman), and also has to face up to his once-psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). He leaves with a somewhat clean slate after going through some interesting, if a little painful reminders of what he left.
Garden State slightly rises above other indie films in this vein (a young man coming to terms with himself and his demons, and having some eccentricities along the way) because Braff is good at directing actors, and gets out of his co-stars- particularly Portman (who is rather wonderful at times, if cutesy and inexplicable in others) and Holm. And, there are a few laughs thrown in amid Large's encounters with old friends and acquaintances. But it doesn't really rise to the greatness that it could've because Braff, as a first-timer, is one of these directors (at least on a first film) that is so in love with film-making that its over-stylized, at least for me. Maybe I've seen TOO many movies, or maybe I'm not as in tune with the "MTV generation" as I could be, but I get tired of things used like slow-motion where the main character(s) are looking straight at the camera (the opening shot is a mixed reaction for me) or in a state of their own (the last shot, and just the last sequence, is tiresome and too deliberate for its own good). There is this romanticism, or maybe pretentious idealizing, and Braff is so infatuated with it it overclouds the better aspects to the film. There is a sense of drama that works, but sometimes its suppressed by the parts that are a little 'showy'.
But these are observations more-so than criticisms; it's obvious that Garden State now has a cult status (especially kids from Jersey, who almost look at this film the same way the young people looked at Godard in the 60's), and I suppose its deserved. I wouldn't be apart of the group that trashes the film to no end, but I'm not calling the film a masterpiece either. At the core its a "date" movie, the kind of film that is great for a couple looking for something that will give some good laughs, a little provocative touches, and a sentimental (if totally clichéd) ending. The soundtrack is also interesting, if of course 'soft', but too emo for my taste. In short, this reminds me of seeing a film by one of my fellow film students at school- I see potential, but they still need to put something on the screen that's a little more compelling, and not pandering too much. B+ (7/10)