Garden State
(2004, Zach Braff, USA) [64 out of 100]
There is an originality in sit-com star Zach Braff's triple threat debut, Garden State that is missing from at least 95% of today's American Cinema. An originality that takes the viewer on a lithium withdrawal odyssey of self-discovery - that is until we hit the final fifteen minutes or so, when the film is finally dragged down into a preachy much-too-talkative abyss of insipidity.
-August 21, 2004
Now don't get me wrong - I am not calling this a bad film by any means. I enjoyed the majority of Garden State so much that I may even be able to forgive and forget those last fifteen minutes. I don't want to condemn the film just because Braff didn't know how to end it better. Maybe I am being rather lenient, compared to my usual harsh treatment of even the slightest of cinematic errors - but I can't help it - I simply liked this film too much to be all that terribly mean to it.
Braff, who stars in one of the most consistantly funny shows on television, Scrubs, has written, easily one of the best screenplays of the year and has managed to transfer it onto celluloid with the oblivious ease of a veteren filmmaker - and this is his first attempt at Cinema. Going in, I knew that he could pull off the acting part of his triple play (being a big fan of Scrubs), but was not really prepared for the quality he gave to his writing and directing.
The story is about Braff's character, Andrew "Large" Largeman coming back to his home town after nine years of a haphazard acting career on the other side of the country, so he can attend his mother's funeral. Estranged from his psychiatrist father and living most of his life looking through a Lithium / Zoloft / Paxil induced haze, Largeman has re-entered his lost childhood with old friends who haven't really changed all that much. But he has changed, opting to finally go off his meds for the first time since age nine, and feel what life really has to offer him - for good or for bad, at least now it's for real.
Natalie Portman, temporarily free of the evil clutches of George Lucas' empire, wriggles about in a performance that reminds us of how good she was in her earlier films such as The Professional and Beautiful Girls. Here she plays Sam, a very guilty and very poor pathological liar who helps Largeman come back to life. The moments between these two characters are subtle magic. When Sam first encounters Largeman and places her headphones on his head so he can listen to what she's listening too - this is a beautifully untapped moment, and it is moments like this that make Garden State all that much stronger of a film.
Peter Sarsgaard, who is usually either found basking his talent at the bottom of a mediocre film (Shattered Glass) or being lost in the shuffle behind other great performances (Boys Don't Cry), may finally be on the verge of stardom (he also has Kinsey coming out in the Fall). Here he plays Largeman's childhood bud Mark who has grown into a bitter, jaded pothead gravedigger who steals the corpses jewelry before burying them. He has both a repugnant aplomb and a sadly sympathetic honour.
These three actors play off each other in such a realistic tone, even with the absurdities happening around them, that this could easily be real life you're watching instead of a movie - and oh yeah, don't forget to watch for rapper-cum-actor Method Man in what will undoubtedly be called one of the best cameos of 2004. Full of quirky jokes that play off each other as if they weren't jokes at all, but rather just reality seen in a whole new light, and barring the sap-ridden tacked-on ending - Garden State is a triumph as a first film and we can only hope there are more to come from the mind of Zach Braff.