Very Overrated

Rating: 1/10 (29 December 2004)

I watched this movie with my sister and her husband. My sister fell asleep 30 mins into the movie.
This is the main problem with this movie. It's very slow. I understand the introspective, somewhat disoriented slant on life Braff's character has, but I found myself unable to connect with his character. So after the fact, I realize that this movie is hit or miss and unfortunately it was way off the mark with me.
Besides the already noted, telling instead of showing tactics used to try to explain things, my problem was even WITH the forced expository, I was very confused. Moments that were meant to serve as climatic revelations in his life had no build up and felt forced. These moments were for me as the audience supposed to make me feel something, yet only left me confused and actual angry that those moments were not well executed.
There are a couple of bright moments like the scene of the shirt at the funeral and the Portman and Braff's scenes towards the end, but in the end I just didn't care.
By the way, Portman was amazing as always and her charisma and originality she brought to a role that could be easily played with stereotypes was excellent. Check her out in Closer.