This was a movie I had been interested in seeing ever since I first heard about it. It wasn't for the story, although the subject matter did seem to be interesting. The reason I wanted to see it was that it featured Zach Braff. I have become a fan of his work on Scrubs, which I feel is one of the best sitcoms currently in production, and wanted to see what he could do outside of that setting. It gets better though, in addition to starring in Garden State, he also wrote and directed it. All that plus positive word of mouth, had me hoping to get a chance to see it. I wasn't sure if I would as it is an independent, lower budgeted film, the like that does not usually get very wide releases, at best I hoped the local arthouse would get it for a week or two. To my surprise it made it to the local cineplex, so of course I made it out to see it.
The film follows Andrew Largemont on a journey where he rediscovers himself when he returns home to New Jersey after the death of his mother. Andrew is a struggling actor in LA, working at a Vietnamese restaurant. When we are introduced to him, his very impassive, almost catatonic, upon opening his medicine cabinet we see neat rows of all sorts of medications. We learn that he has been medicated for a large portion of his life, because of an accident when he was 9 years old which his father, who is also his psychiatrist, holds very deep seated anger about. On his return, Andrew makes the decision to not take his medication. This opens up new doors for him as he starts to feel again, maybe for the first time, like awakening from a coma. This gives him a childlike wonder for much of the film. This not to say that he is a child, but he is experiencing a lot of things that he has not felt since he was a child.
Article comments
1 - visualsimplicity
Nice review. This movie ranks up there with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in terms of best movies of this year that I've seen so far. As you've said, it's not so much the plot that makes the movie, but rather the interaction and chemistry between the characters (especially Zach and Natalie).
2 - Chris
It is definitely up there, I like the comparison to Sunshine. When I saw Sunshine I compared it Lost in translation, all three seem to be cut from a very similar cloth without seeming like s copy of the other. 3 great films with great relationships being their centerpoint.
3 - neil cane
What was the "knight" all about? Was he "doin' the mom? Why was Mark so upset with the knight?
4 - Chris
That's exactly what he was doing, a little bit of the Oedipus complex perhaps, acted out with a friends mom? It was a wonderfully oddball sequence, which was made reference to later on, I forgot the line though...