Doesn't add up to very much

Rating: 4/10 (30 July 2007)

This pleasant and inoffensive movie touches on themes common in US art house cinema. The angst of twenty somethings as they struggle to build careers from dead end jobs, the quirkiness of small town America, estrangement from friends and family.
This movie is clearly influenced by such films as The Graduate and the Good Girl. However it is terminally slow moving and never rises close to either of those two movies. It has its moments spread thinly amongst endless scenes of is Zach Braff looking wan and Natalie Portman talking funny.
The central theme of father-son estrangement is continually put off in favour of some blackly comic asides. For me the humour was more dead than dead-pan. The quirky details are nice enough by themselves, but you can't build an entire movie out of this and the central plots, estranged father-son relationship and finding true love have been done so many times before and better. Ian Holm's talents were barely stretched. Some of the scenes touch on controversial subjects but are only peripheral to the storyline and don't add much bite to the plot. The big reveal was not so big and the ending in particular was a great big howling romantic cinema cliché.