Beautiful, melancholy quarter-life crisis

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2004)

Zach Braff. Who knew? He not only wrote and directed this well-crafted picture, but his performance is a layered, nuanced picture of pain, anger, and eventually hope. This movie is marvelous. It perfectly captures the feeling of coming home in your mid-twenties and having it both be home and not home at the same time. The angst of the twenty-something isn't anything new, but where Garden State rises above its peers is in its truthfulness. My friends and I left the theater commenting that we can't remember having seen a movie this "real" in quite a while. And that's saying quite a lot for a movie that introduces a character with her waving around a dead hamster. Garden State deftly balances the absurd and the comic with the melancholic and heartbreaking. The cinematography and direction were both excellent and the soundtrack was the perfect accompaniment. And yes, contrary to some opinions, you are supposed to laugh, because sometimes the ridiculousness of life really does catch up to you. No, it doesn't follow a traditional three-act structure, and no, you won't have answers to all your questions, and in the end it adds to the movie's authenticity. In the great disaffected tradition of the Graduate, Harold and Maude, and Lost in Translation, we have a romantic little story about returning home for a weekend that will stay with you long after you see it.