Garden State

Over the weekend I saw Garden State, a movie written, directed and starring Zach Braff. This is almost exactly the kind of quirky, character driven movie that I love. It’s just a pity the ending had to be so clichéd. Anyway, I didn’t let that spoil my enjoyment. Andrew Largeman (Braff) is an aspiring TV actor living in LA. One morning he awakes to a message being recorded on his answering machine. The voice on the machine is his father’s, who has called to say that his mother died by drowning in the bath. Largeman flies across the country to his home in Newark for his mother’s funeral. It’s here that the story really begins. Largeman does not have a good relationship with his father (played by Ian Holm), who is also his psychiatrist. Largeman meets his old friends, including a guy who invented silent Velcro. He also meets a girl, Sam (played by Natalie Portman), in a doctor’s surgery. These two befriend each other immediately. They’re a rather unlikely pair, with Largeman being a melancholy character who’s spent the last few years of his life drugged out on head medications, while Sam is lively and exuberant. What follows is Largeman trying to make sense of his life, with Sam helping him along. Sam is the spark that Largeman needed to get his life going again. This is an excellent movie, and it’s definitely among my top three picks for the year (probably just behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Station Agent – two other quirky art-house movies).