You've probably heard how great Garden State is. Perhaps your roommate stumbled in raving about it one day, knocking over his pirated Death Cab for Cutie albums in sheer excitement, or one of your IM buddies began quoting lines from it on her away message. In any case, though the movie has garnered plenty of general critical praise (84 percent "fresh" on RottenTomatoes.com never lies), Zach Braff's directorial debut about a young man's emotional awakening is a bonafide phenomenon among college-aged viewers.
Like The Graduate or Reality Bites before it, Garden State manages to tap into a particular angst-ridden twentysomething ethos. Stylish soundtrack? Check. Deadpan humor? Check. Insistently quirky characters, impeded by a painful lack of direction? Double check. What results is a sure-fire hit to the college heart: a movie that is accessible, yet hip enough to put on your personal Top Ten list.
It helps that Garden State has an appealing cast of young actors, headed up by writer-director Braff as 26-year-old Andrew Largeman, a struggling actor-slash-mediocre waiter in Los Angeles who, after a nine-year absence, returns to his native New Jersey to attend his mother's funeral.
Medicated on a cocktail of lithium and other mental medications since age 10, Largeman stumbles through life in a fog of apathy, played up through an array of clever visual cues. When his father (played by the masterful Ian Holmes) calls to tell him that his paraplegic mother has died, Largeman listens to the message while lying in a plain white bed, staring blankly up at the most lethargic ceiling fan this side of an assisted-living facility. His image as the disconnected antihero brings to mind everyone from Holden Caulfield to Donnie Darko -- Braff's depiction of alienation is as stylized as it is familiar.
Once back in Jersey, however, Largeman's medications wear off, and without refills, he falls back with a rag-tag group of old friends, all of whom help pull him out of his emotional stupor. There's the pothead gravedigger Mark, played with impressive naturalness by indie up-and-comer Peter Sarsgaard. There's the slacker millionaire who made a fortune selling his invention, Silent Velcro, and spends his days throwing Ecstasy-fueled parties. And finally, there's Samantha (Natalie Portman), a zany epileptic who single-handedly draws the human being back out of Largeman. In Portman's hands, Sam is the most absorbing character in the movie, both real and really irritating.
The rest of the movie unfolds predictably as Largeman reclaims his troubled past (he feels responsible for his mother's disability) and rejuvenates his life. Sparks fly between Largeman and Sam, and there's plenty of self-consciously weighty-- "And y'know, maybe this is what life is"--dialogue to go with it. But for a movie that never claims to subvert convention as much as infuse it with a contemporary spirit, surprise is beyond the point.
The fact is, "Garden State" has become a beloved college-kid hit because it shows an uncanny understanding of what it's like to be a young adult with no idea where life is headed. Largeman, whittling away his time in L.A. playing mentally-retarded football players in made-for-TV movies, is not so different from any recent university graduate who pursues the catering life while wondering when that brilliant break is going to come. His ratty sweatshirts, awkward relationship with home, and sense of being in between things rings so familiar it's almost irritating.
Even the movie's soundtrack -- The Shins, Nick Drake, Postal Service, etc.-- could have been ripped straight from the average college kid's iPod playlist, although the selections are a bit too obvious to be revelatory in the way that Braff hopes. Witness the scene in which Sam introduces Largeman to The Shins: it's a moment that creates an immediate connection between the two characters, but to a viewer under 25, Largeman may just seem a little late to The Shins' party. C'mon, they are just so last spring.
As a director, Braff is at a his best when producing visual comedy in the mode of Wes Anderson, setting up scenes that act as snappy one-liners, like when the still-medicated Largeman climbs out of his car to find the severed nozzle from a gas station hanging from his tank. Had more of Garden State been devoted to moments like this, the movie might have ended up less sappy, more energetic, and better at revamping the familiar.
