Glory Days in NJ Can Still Come in the Future

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2004)

"Garden State" is a wonderful debut for writer/director Zach Braff, visually and verbally.
The camera's eye, in placement and Lawrence Sher's cinematography, beautifully support the sharp and truthful (and funny) dialogue. And, no, as lead actor Braff's not just playing his "Scrubs" role.

The directing and the acting, particularly backed by the expressive production design palette, well support the cross-country odyssey Braff's "Andrew Largeman" undergoes as he eschews his father's prescription emotion-controllers for first recreational enhancers and finally for the pain and potential happiness of human relationships.
Every character has lies that are gradually and with clear eyes revealed, as each has to face up to who they have become, including Peter Sarsgaard's not so sympathetic stoner grave digger.
Natalie Portman is a delight in what may be her best role so far. She is simply irresistible and the camera falls in love with her liveliness, from her eyebrows to her akimbo limbs, as she breathes life into "Large."

While Braff resisted using Johnny Cash's cover of Loudon Wainwright's original of "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" in a simply beautiful scene with a Dixie cup to capture a significant moment in "Large"'s life, the excellent song selection is as critical to the film as Scorcese's or Tarantino's. The released soundtrack is annoyingly incomplete, lacking Alexei Murdoch's "Orange Sky" and a closing song, among others. The romantic use of The Shins' songs should certainly help sales of their CDs (the cuts on the soundtrack are both from their older "Oh, Inverted World" CD).

The New Jersey settings are evocatively selected, with each house succinctly establishing the character's family setting. The male camaraderie of ironically "Glory Days" high school chums is also well-captured.

But this is at least the fourth movie/TV show I've seen this year with a mother somewhat inexplicably bedding a gangly youth their son's age, such that either some male writers have watched "Summer of '42" or even "Harold and Maude" too often, seen too much about Mary Kay Letourneau or there's some other kind of anger out there.