even my sister liked it...

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2004)

my sister is 15, and, though smart, usually not interested in spending time with anything whose value might lie beneath some mental digging. when we walked out of this film, she was still wet on the cheek, but smiling, raving about the experience.
this alone doesn't qualify this film, understandably. but it goes to show that there is an easily accessible profundity to the film. what's more, during the film my sister and i shared some of the biggest laughs i can remember.
this alone was worth our viewing the film. but beyond that, beyond our mutually enjoyed experience, there was a great deal more. e.g., coming from middle class, east coast family, and still dealing with the withering trail of a medicated youth (statistics i share with an increasing, but already substantial group of people), the movie admittedly moved me to a tear, and at the most subtle of moments too. and as 'large' admits himself, crying is the rarest rarity for the medicated. this is all to say that the movie is successful on an intimate level; a quality which alone qualifies most movies as successful.
but my favorite of the films qualities was its meaningful aesthetic. i know that is a stupid thing to say, but its pretty true. the beginning of the film has a few interesting visual, artsy shots, but they don't sink into you as something really meaningful, or positively additive. but then Braff gets smarter with his film-making and the movie has a beauty, a profusion of really touching images, which visually surpasses (im pretty sure) anything i've seen lately. (my favorite image, maybe in any film ever, which embraces everything a film could and should translate - is in one of the final scenes, the image of the up and down escalators with (just watch it and see; its just perfect), and this is where the film succeeds on its final level. those who are true lovers of film (and film-making), (and strangely also those who love great literature, but who wish that occasionally there was a supplied enhancement, a visual accompaniment, will find great satisfaction in this movie).
so, basically here's the short of it: entertaining for the non-cerebral (but probably it's a bit slow for the wholly vacuous); its personally meaningful (certainly if you fit the character profile, which is probably why you're seeing the film in the first place); and its a beautiful and well made film (for those of you who care).