Unique Moment in Time
Garden State Achieves Something Different

To television fans, Zach Braff is the quirky Dr. J.D. Dorian on NBC's "Scrubs." Watching the show, one might incorrectly assume that Braff is a comedian and nothing more. In Garden State, his writing and directorial film debut, Braff shows that he has some other things going on his head besides jokes. With a visual style that turns even the most ordinary things beautiful, he paints a view of New Jersey that is poignant and bittersweet.

Braff, who also stars in the film, plays Andrew Largeman, a young man in his mid-20s who has returned home for his mother's funeral. Estranged from his family for nine years, he has been living in Los Angeles as a struggling actor. Now, returning to New Jersey, he finds himself still at odds with his father (Ian Holm) and unable to fit in with his old friends for whom time has seemed to stand still.

His friends lives are filled with drugs as a means of escaping the blandness of their existence. Andrew soon sees that the perscription medication he has been on for years has also been a means of escape. But instead of making him feel something in a bland existence, the lithium and other drugs have dulled his life to the point where he has not felt anything. To test this, he decides to live without medication. Living free of sedation and his old psychiatrist (his father), he begins to experience life.

Entering into Andrew's life at this emotional time is a young woman named Sam (Natalie Portman) who confesses to being a habitual liar. In contrast to Andrew's quiet, reflective nature, she is filled with strange charm and bubbling with life. She fights the ordinariness of life by trying to create unique moments that have never happened before. Her love of life is infectuous, and Andrew is quickly drawn to her.

Peter Sarsgaard plays Andrew's old friend Mark, a gravedigger who bounces between getting high and stealing from the dead. Mark never left home and never fulfilled his ambition. As such, he acts as a counterpoint for Andrew. Audiences may be tempted to hate or pity this character, but he represents the majority of Andrew's old gang. Only Jesse (Armando Riesco) seems to have made something of himself, but his wealth has only bought a mansion without anything inside. (The not-so-subtle metaphor is clear.) Despite his problems, Andrew is pretty average.

Garden State tells a story filled with revelations that tell about Andrew's past slowly. Over the days that he gets acquainted with Sam, he shares some intimate facts about his family history that even his old friends don't know. Time with Sam becomes a kind of therapy for him, as he seeks to explore his world with her. She is also a mirror for his emotion. In one scene, she is easily moved to tears when he recalls his mother's death, showing her emotions in a way that Andrew can not.

The film is beautiful to look at. Although Braff falls into some common traps as a first time director (heavy reliance on time-lapse photography, for instance), he manages to make some very memorable scenes with the most simple images. For example, I was surprised by the a scene at a crosswalk where children -- linked hand in hand, forming a chain -- pass in front of Andrew and Sam. A scene in an empty bathtub is also very compelling. Likewise, the soundtrack to Garden State is a very carefully selected compendium of songs that reflect the same touching imagery as the visual component of the film.

The entire film hit me in a way similar to Lost in Translation. They are entirely different films, but each integrates a visual representation of a place (Tokyo or New Jersey) that forces the audience to experience the place as much as they experience the lives of the characters. While New Jersey is often compared unfavorably with places like New York and Massachuesettes, Braff manages to make it beautiful, warts and all.

MY RATING: 8 out of 10.

RATED: R
RUN TIME: 109 min.