Garden State Review (Sunday Business Post)

Garden State
Dir: Zach Braff
Principle Cast: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard

‘The Quarterlife Crisis’. At last, that vapid feeling of disillusionment that descends upon people in their mid-twenties has a name. And a book, and a film, and probably a theme tune too if you Googled long enough. Zach Braff’s debut is a movie that has managed to catch the apathetic phenomenon on celluloid like Jor-El captured General Zod and co. with that mirror in Superman II. If the seventies were about anti-authority (Dirty Harry), the eighties about commercialism (Wall Street) and the nineties about caring (Highlander II: The Quickening), then the noughties are about hopelessness. American Beauty (1999), Donnie Darko, Lost in Translation, Napoleon Bonaparte and Sideways all have a generous dollop of despair, so sharing the depressing zeitgeist Garden State has good company in the category of low budget ‘cult’ successes.
The semi-autobiographical story follows the path of Andrew Largeman, an actor/bus-boy living in LA who has to return home after ten years to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral. Anxious to avoid his estranged psychiatrist father who has had him on Lithium since the age of nine, he hooks up with some old friends and bumps into a girl called Sam (Nathalie Portman). Bowled over by her downright kookiness, Largeman throws her on the back of his bike and the two of them head off on a journey of self-discovery bumping into characters from his past each with his own amusing tics and defects.
Garden State is a very modern film in its themes, complete lack of structure and slow pace, but that’s why it’s so enjoyable. It has the guts of a coming-of-age movie while just about avoiding schmalz, and bolstered by a strong supporting cast, is quite an achievement for a first effort. Peter Sarsgaard brings a definite presence to the screen as Mark, Largeman’s undesirable schoolmate, and looks to be the new Joaquin Phoenix, quietly notching up supporting roles in Kinsey and a new Jodie Foster thriller currently in post-production. Braff himself has little acting to do in the film as the zonked-out Largeman – it seems difficult for him to shake off the memory of JD in Scrubs due the unfortunate hindrance of limited facial expressions. Portman however, was born to make men melt, and makes the best of one or two scenes that could have gone all Dharma and Greg in a lesser actor’s hands (Braff has many times gushed with thanks for her involvement).
The other reason the film reads so differently to the usual Hollywood fare is that it’s character rather than plot driven, which is usually the case with low-budget films, substituting witty dialogue for expensive action or special effects. That does mean that the script and tempo are vital, and a harsh judge would say that the cynical humour that carries the film fades about two thirds the way through. But perhaps that’s criticism for the sake of it – Garden State is an ambrosial little jaunt that the educated viewer will savour like a cheese platter with fancy hexagonal crackers.

4 out of 5