Garden State

Garden State is a surprisingly good movie, written and directed by Zach Braff. Braff is more famous as the lead actor in the comedy series Scrubs, which is on of the few series whose humor I simply don't get. I have seen some chunks of episodes and I haven't really laughed once, although I do think I understand what the idea of the show is and the actors are quite good too.

In Garden State Braff plays Andrew Largeman. When Andrew was little he accidentally hit his mother, so she had to sit in a wheelchair. He was sent to a boarding school and he hasn't returned home since. Due to this experience he is on all kinds of prescription drugs, sleepwalking through life. As the movie begins he gets a call from his father, telling him his mother died. For the first time in more then 10 years he comes back home, leaving his prescription drugs back in LA, secretly hoping that he'll be able to function without any for a couple of days and then later on maybe more.

Andrew doesn't have a really great career in LA. He works in a Vietnamese restaurant and is an aspiring actor who once played a retarded football-player. But compared to his childhood friends in New Jersey, he is pretty successful. Mark is a gravedigger who steals valuable things from the dead he buries. Jesse has invented silent Velcro, is now a millionaire and has no idea what to do with the rest of is life. He is almost always stoned. Then there is Kenny, a cop who is so unsure of himself that when he stops Andrew for speeding and recognizes him, asks him if he was convincing. Andrew's realtionship with his father, played by Ian Holm, isn't very good. After his' mothers' funeral he has his first conversation with his father in years. It's a pretty awkward one. His father asks him how he feels and Andrew answers he's fine, but that he sometimes has headaches. His father reacts by advising him a doctor he can go to. His father, in fact, is a doctor himself and thinks that everything can be cured by medicine. We later in the film learn that he actually thinks it's good for Andrew that he's on so many drugs. To him the risk of feeling bad is bigger then the reward of feeling great. So he let's Andrew live numbly feeling nothing.

But Andrew more and more realizes that he can live without his drugs and that his life may even be better for it. That is partly due to Sam, a girl he meets while waiting for the doctor. Sam is a joyous, slightly strange girl who just like Andrew doesn't have a very happy life, but thinks you should live your life to the fullest and enjoy it as much as you can. She lives alone with her mother and was a talented figure skater until it turned out she was epileptic. Now she has to wear a helmet while working at a law firm. Of course, one can easily guess how all this will end and the movie's story is not very surprising indeed. But it's told with a lot of wit and originality and it has some wonderful scenes. Before I say more about them though, I should mention something about the acting.

Zach Braff shows that he can act pretty good, but acting-wise he is overshadowed in this movie by Peter Sarsgaard and Natalie Portman.
Especially Natalie Portman, who plays Sam, was a huge surprise to me in this movie. I've seen some movies with her, but I've never really noticed her. In this movie she creates a completely believable character that's a bit wacky yet lovable. True to her character's attitude to live life to its fullest she's almost always doing something. I think that her performance is very important for this movie and is a big part of why it works.

In one scene Sam and Andrew are talking and she suddenly stands up and starts making bizarre movements and bizarre faces. Her reasoning being, it's sometimes nice to do something nobody's ever done before. That seems to be the same attitude Zach Braff had making the movie. Be original, even though it sometimes may not work. There is for example the aforementioned invention of silent Velcro. But there is also a very inventive scene in a mall. Alex needs money, so he takes a set of knives from the store and returns it at the counter asking his money back. When and how he eventually does get his money 'back' is very audacious. Both by Alex and the movie. Sam's lives home with her mother and an African guy who seems old enough to be able to live on his own. He is a bit weirdly written character and doesn't really work in the movie. Luckily he is soon forgotten. But this aren't the only living things living in Sam's household. They also keep hamsters who somehow keep dying because they don't know how to use the hamster wheel. Now the Sam household has a cemetery of hamsters in their garden. It's unclear why they keep hamsters, but why not? I've never seen any other movie do something like this and it's a testament to how good it is that despite all this the characters don't come off as complete lunatics, but as nice, lovable people.