Casual Critic Mini Reviews

Garden State (USA) (Fox Searchlight) (2004) ****Year: 2004iMDB

Director: Zach Braff Cast: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard

Zach Braff which most people only know from his role as a funny doctor in the TV show Scrubs decides to write, direct and play the main character in Garden State, and he manages to put himself close in the footsteps of Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood. Garden State tells the story of modern teenage angst in America, placing it more particularly in the state that should be clearly dubbed the quirkiest state rather than The Garden State, New Jersey.

Andrew (Braff) comes back to NJ for his mother's funeral and has to finally come to terms with the guilt that haunted him since childhood when he was the cause of an accident that paralyzed his mother. Sam (Portman) is an epileptic, pathological liar; Mark (Sarsgaard) is Andrew's ex highschool mate that now works digging graves in the local cemetery; another one of Andrew's colleagues became rich due to an invention he made and now just enjoys wasting his money... These characters and some of the stories around them, all have some absurd dimension to them, but they are all believable in their feeling of being lost in their own lives, of feeling as if they're in a permanent vegetable (garden) state.

Despite the somewhat weaker ending, Garden State is an endearing romantic comedy, with genuinely funny moments, witty dialogue, good character study and one of the best contemporary soundtracks in recent years (Coldplay, Remy Zero, The Shins, Paul Simon, etc.)