I caught a matinee screening of
Garden State over the weekend. It's the writer and directorial debut of
Zach Braff (better know as JD on
Scrubs). The movie, which screened at Sundance, is story of Andrew Largeman (Braff), a mildly successful actor in Los Angeles, who travels home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral.
Largeman spends his entire life in a lithium-induced haze (prescribed by his psychiatrist father), and has no emotional response to anything in his life. When he arrives back in New Jersey he encounters Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), a friend from high school, who is working in the cemetary where his mother is being buried. After the wake, he joins his friends at a party where they spend the night drinking and eating extasy. The wake and party scenes are brilliantly made to show how distant Large is from real life.
It's not until he meets Samantha (Natalie Portman) in the waiting room of a doctor's office until he starts to show some signs of emotion. But, it's not until Large's friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) takes Sam and Large on a seemingly pointless journey through New Jersey that Large starts to break out of his shell. Back in his parent's house with Sam he finally experiences the emotions he's had bottled up inside himself since a tragic accident when he was a little kid, and finally confronts his father (Sir Ian Holm) on how he feels.
I know the movie sounds kinda depressing, but it's really not. In fact, it's rather funny at times, and quite good. The acting is excellent, and the main characters are well developed, and you feel some attachment to all of them. Beyond just the acting, the
soundtrack works very well with the movie, and features some great music by
The Shins and
ColdPlay.
My only complaint about the movie is that ending seems tacked on, and not in the same tone as the rest of the movie (which unfortunately, makes the ending kinda predicatable). But, from what I've read, it's not Braff's original ending, but instead one that Fox Searchlight pushed for.
I saw the movie at one of my local
arthouse theaters, so I don't know if it has any mainstream distribution. But, you should definitely check out this movie. It far exceeded my expectations, and was definitely one of those great independent releases that will probably go unnoticed by most of the movie going public.