[Film] Garden State

Had really high expectations for this film, probably unrealistically. As a first time effort, the movie was done admirably. However, I was somewhat disappointed after watching it. Zach Braff, the writer/director/lead actor of the film, has created a sincere work that has moments of brilliance but can't quite get there. It has heart, humour and just right amount of quirkiness and edge to keep the movie relatively interesting, but ultimately it fails to captivate the audience, in this case, me. The film is at its best when it's honest (such as the pool scene and the 'home speech'), but often than not it tries too hard to be 'touching;' sentimentalism thus takes over the film and stops it from going beyond the superficiality of 'trying to be meaningful.'

The relationship between Braff's character Andrew and his father is sketchy at best, and instead of exploring the father-and-son relationship in depth, the film focuses more on the romance between Andrew and Sam, played by Natalie Portman. This decision certainly makes the movie more appealing to its target audience - the teenagers, but I think they could've given the father more of a substantial role and made the movie more balanced. As far as the acting goes, I can't get past Zach Braff's character from the TV show Scrubs. I'm so used to his quirky and over-the-top character from that show that I just can't see him in a serious role. It's weird. Natalie Portman is fine, but for me, Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Andrew's best friend Mark, gives the most convincing performance in the movie.

For the most part, Garden State is a enjoyable movie. The ending reeks of cheese, and the movie in the end opts for the easy solution to be as crowd pleasing as possible. There are, however, some really nice moments that are genuinely moving and the dialogue is fresh and poignant at times. It just didn't live up to my probably unreasonably high expectations.


7/10