Natalie Rocks!

Rating: 9/10 (24 March 2012)

I was quite impressed with "Garden State", and I was very impressed with Natalie Portman who plays Sam.
Portman eschews beauty in every scene but manages to be cute and sweet and very emotionally evolved, which I liked. She is of course beautiful and brilliant as everybody knows, but here she tries something different. She strives to be ordinary and slight but with great emotive power. Nice performance.
The sound track which reminded this old guy of something from Simon and Garfunkel, and in fact there is a Simon and Garfunkel tune on it, was the sort of sweet, nostalgia-producing, alternative rock kind of sweet angst sound that lets you know that this is what youth is all about.
Largeman, wanna-be and somewhat successful/somewhat failed actor out on loan, comes home from the big city to rural New Jersey because his mother has died, unaccountable in a bathtub--which can happen if you are a paraplegic. He deals with a childhood tragedy and acquired guilt, meets his old buds, including Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) who is a full time slacker and part time dreamer and consummate doper. Largeman unveils his sidecar mobile--the only thing willed from his grandfather's estate--with its white star on combat green, and tools around town, parties a little and meets quirky Samantha who likes to tell lies as a kind of way to deal with the world. I knew a girl like that, only she only knew when she was lying--if somebody caught her. Sam figures it's a tick like Tourette's, and anyway her lies are harmless.
The movie is sweet and mildly comedic with some original shtick, and at times a bit of a tear-jerker. More than anything it's a touching love story.