Picture This! Reviews Garden State

Reprinted from NotesFromHollywood.com

Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) has lived in a medically prescribed induced fog ever since he was nine years old. When he returns home to New Jersey (the Garden State) for his mother’s funeral, he goes through the motions with patronizing older relatives, loser high school pals, and a distant psychiatrist father. Largeman, or Large as he’s known to the boys in the hood, seems anything but until he meets Sam (Natalie Portman), who happens to be adorable and who ever so gently draws him out of his shell.

Independent films don’t have a lot of the bells and whistles that major studio productions have, car crashes, computer generated armies, lush music scores. What they do have is far more impressive – freedom. In Braff’s directorial debut he dares to be different, lots of lingering close-ups of his lost character, a little longer than expected breakfast conversation with a knight in full armor, and an avant garde side trip to an illicit hotel. It all comes together in the end, sort of, and that’s okay.

Braff may take a few chances with his scene selections but there’s no question about his cast. The star of TV’s Scrubs has surrounded himself with quality talent and he let’s them shine even if it’s only in one scene, like Jean Smart and Ron Leibman.

But his stroke of genius is the casting of Natalie Portman as Sam. As naturally as if she had grown up next door, Portman becomes the open and honest Sam, a compulsive liar.

In the end, the awakening that Largeman experiences is neither forced nor contrived and his conversation with his father is a cinematic gem.

It will be interesting to see if Braff decides to spend time in the chair marked Director or Star in the future. His choice. He’s made his mark in Garden State.
Rebecca Redshaw is the Arts& Entertainment Critic for www.NotesFromHollywood.com. She can be reached at r2redshaw@hotmail.com.