HIgh Minded But Fails

Rating: 5/10 (11 June 2006)

I must confess that I really despise New Jersey as a whole, so any film named "Garden State" has two strikes before it comes to bat. I'm sure you readers here already understand the plot, so I won't bore you with rehashing the details. Baiscally, he seeks forgiveness and finds that and love in a trip back home for his mother's funeral; leaving his little failed actor world in LA. Some people have compared it to the "Graduate" as a generation defining movie. It does have that potential: over medicated on psychotropic drugs, isolated from reality, his old buddies are stay at home wastrels. But the triteness of it all, capped off on the "it only happens in the movies" love relation with Natalie Portman and the effortless psyche healing via love and banal psycho-babble clichés, makes me wonder what all the sophistos at Sundance saw in this film, where it cleaned up at that festival. I won't trash this film and Braff does have potential, but it is an easily forgettable film that aims high but belly flops.