Garden State (2004) * 1/2

Directed by:  Zach Braff

Starring:  Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holm

I saw this film many years ago and really disliked it.    Nine years later, it's on a cable channel and I decide to give it another shot.    There have been films I didn't like the first time that I enjoyed after a second viewing.      Maybe I was just in a bad mood the first time I saw Garden State.    After watching it a second time, my opinion hasn't changed much.     A film that fails to involve me or care much the first time will, after many years of going through the daily grind of life and gaining wisdom, likely fail to involve me the second time also.     Garden State is 0 for 2 and it's time for a pinch hitter. 

Zach Braff, most famous for TV's Scrubs, wrote, directed, and stars in Garden State.     I think he should've had another actor in the lead.     Braff doesn't have the stuff to carry the heavy load his character shoulders daily.    He speaks many of his lines through clenched teeth.    I don't know if this is simply part of his delivery or a nervous tic, but it's noticable and distracting.      Braff plays Andrew, a part-time actor who lives in Hollywood holding down odd jobs.     He flies home to New Jersey after learning that his paralyzed mother drowned in the bathtub.     He has been in and out of psychiatrist's offices since age 9, the age when he accidentally contributed to his mother's paralysis.    Since that incident, he was heavily medicated from the pain and guilt his father (Holm) didn't want him to feel.     Ian Holm is convincingly angry, yet awkwardly reconciliatory toward his son.     Andrew's scene of reconciliation with his father is muted when it could have been very powerful.    

When he leaves Los Angeles to attend the funeral, he leaves his medication behind, forcing him to face the world without the haze of medication concealing his true self from others.     His friends, including stoner Mark (Sarsgaard) are thrilled to see him, but he's pretty much a dud, whether medicated or not.     He meets a girl named Sam (Portman), who is perky, off-the-wall, and a compulsive liar.     She likes Andrew and he likes her well enough, but Portman and Braff simply don't have any chemistry.     They seem to be following the screenplay and falling in love because they are required to.      Portman puts her all into Sam.    She has so much energy that we tend to forget that Braff is even occupying the same scene.

Things more or less go predictably.    Does Braff learn to live his life without meds?   Does he leave Sam, get on a plane, and then get off the plane to reunite with her?    I'm sure I don't have to answer those questions, especially if you've seen a movie before.    Garden State is a low-energy romantic comedy-drama about a guy who could pass for a zombie who learns to live and love.     Braff earnestly tries to create something here and maybe it has some autobiographical undertones to it, but I ultimately just didn't care.    By the way, the Friends finale aired the same year as the release of this film and it had Rachel saying goodbye to Ross, get on a plane, and then get off the plane to reunite with him.    It was done better there than in Garden State.    Just saying.