Meh

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2005)

Not one of my favorite movies. I'm from New Jersey and recognized most of the locales in the movie, and my mother grew up in the town, South Orange, where it was filmed. Most of her mother's friends knew Zach Braff's family growing up. The quarry's behind my mother's best friend's childhood house, by the way, and not in Newark. They built luxury condominiums over it after this movie was shot. Oh well! But nothing in this movie is especially like New Jersey. Any native New Jerseyite who's actually lived there all of their life would say that. It could be anywhere. So why is it called "Garden State"?
I also think it's a typical Indie deathtrap with nothing new or unique to say about life, just the typical uplifting hooplah spelling big bucks among teenagers who think they're unique, and, more likely than not, live in New Jersey. New Jersey is a hotbed of two things-Italian "mafioso-type" actors and teen angst indie movies, actors, and movie makers, like Todd Solondz, Christina Ricci, Lou Pucci, and Zach Braff. Surely, some parts of the movie were excellent-Natalie Portman was luminous. But this is all so typically, disgustingly indie. At least "Ghost World" was an excellent movie. But now movies like that have been done to death.