One of the best of 2004

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2004)

I have never seen an entire episode of Scrubs. I couldn't even tell you what night it is on. I have seen snippets here and there as I flipped between likely inferior programming, but could I name a character or an actor that has donned a white coat on the NBC sitcom  no.
So when I heard that a new small budgeted film called Garden State was doing the festival circuit and was written/directed and starred Zach Braff the lead of the above mentioned sitcom, I was not exactly circling the release date on my desktop calendar.
But as the months went by since its premiere at Sundance, I could no longer ignore what critics were crowning as '..a hilarious and heartfelt ode to twentysomething angst' (Peter Travers  Rolling Stone), and a 'quirky sweet coming of age tale' (Boston Herald), I could ignore it no further.
Well, this reaffirms what critics are good for. They try and steer you from wasting your money on box office fodder and every once and a while, they use the power of print to help bring attention to a small gem that requires help to get recognized for what it deserves.
Garden State tells the story of Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff), a heavily medicated 26-year old that moved from Jersey to California to break into show business. Most known for playing a 'retard' in a football themed movie, Andrew comes back home after receiving a message that his mother has passed away in a freak drowning accident.
We don't know much about Andrew as he enters an environment he has shunned for 10 years, but like any good character driven story, the layers of the onion keep peeling and peeling revealing a very complex and tormented youth.
Most of the first quarter of the movie spends time with Andrew's re-introduction to old friends and family. They are about as quirky as they come without being too off the wall or unbelievable - barely. Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) is a gravedigger who steals jewelry from the dead before burial. Mark's mother is a mixed bag of nuts that is dating a knight from a dinner show production who wears his armor to breakfast, and Andrew's father is a doctor and psychiatrist that prescribed his son countless drugs in the ten years since their last encounter in efforts to stymie any emotion Andrew might feel from an unfortunate accident that occurred when he was nine.
As Andrew explores life off drugs and with his reacquainted friends, he is brought into a world of extremes where each experience is fascinating and revealing and where each newly introduced character is more eccentric than the last. Whether it is the rich former schoolmate who made a fortune selling his idea for silent Velcro or a couple that lives on a makeshift boat on the edge of a geological phenomena, not since The Royal Tenenbaums have there been such charismatic oddballs that are all so lovable and yet peculiar.
So when Andrew meets Sam (Natalie Portman) it is no surprise that she fits right into his world. Sam is an admitted liar who lives in a house as distinctive as her nature. The living room is like a scientific experiment gone awry with hamster tunnels erected like a full sized Lego castle. A Christmas tree still stands in the corner some three seasons removed from the holidays, and the backyard has a pet cemetery with countless makeshift headstones. But none of this seems out of place. Writer/Director Braff does a great job in his debut in keeping everything out of the ordinary almost, well, ordinary. Maybe it was the opening chapters where we see Andrew modeling a shirt made from leftover bathroom fabric or hearing a horrendous rendition of Three Times A Lady being sung at his mother's funeral. For whatever the situation, Braff uses dry humor and intelligent wit to keep us interested in people I can only hope not many of us can relate to. When Andrew awakens in a strange house to see a knight carrying a jug of milk, it is explained to us in reasonable terms without belaboring the point or trying to squeeze every last bit of humor from one cameo.
Maybe most surprising in his first attempt behind the big screen camera is how he developed and maintained great chemistry between Andrew and Sam. As he becomes more and more normal while recovering from his drug induced monotony, Sam becomes the complex character and we can understand why the two of them would find comfort and attraction in the other.
I don't know what Braff has next on his agenda, but like more seasoned directors Wes Anderson and Alexander Payne he has an incredible knack of bring a world that I can (thankfully) only appreciate in the confines of a crowded unlit room and his next film will undoubtedly be circled on my calendar as a 'what to watch for'.
In the meantime, I look forward to seeing Garden State again. It has quietly nosed its way into being one of the best of films of 2004 and I we shouldn't ignore the shoulder pushing we get from the critics headlines to go see it.