Candleblog

[Our 5-year anniversary look back at Candleblog continues with another film review -- this time it's Garden State. This post was originally published on 8/21/04.]

Remember the good old days of American independent film, when Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch reigned supreme? Wry post-modernism was the dominant paradigm. The characters that populated indy films in the 90s were sarcastic smart-asses who saw everything in their worlds through a “been there, done that” filter. It seemed like every piece of dialogue was a comment on something, or a comment on a comment on something. If you could take the conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Todd Field in 1994′s Sleep With Me–about how the subtext of Top Gun is really about homosexuality–and bronze it, you would have a perfect representation of the state of American independent film in the 1990s: detached, too clever for it’s own good, ironic.

In the last few years though (insert obligatory 9/11 reference here), indy films have started to move away from that model and the new crop of auteurs is embracing a more honest, sincere, and courageous paradigm. P. T. Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation and Michel Gondry’s recent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are some excellent examples of what I’m talking about–films that despite being extremely hip (in fact, these films arguably define currently hip cinema), still deal with real human emotion and interaction without masking it behind detached boredom and “coolness.” These films are essentially romantic comedies, but re-invented and stripped of the cliched “chick-flick” sentimentality and manipulated weepiness that has defined that genre for so long.

Zack Braff’s directorial debut, Garden State, continues the trend toward this New Sincerity in indy filmmaking, and in fact the film is in some ways about this very transformation.

At the beginning of Garden State, Andrew Largeman (played by Braff) is so detached, he is virtually catatonic. The opening shot of the film cleverly depicts his association with the world. It’s the interior of a jetliner during a crash. People are screaming and praying and freaking out all around him as he sits, staring at nothing in particular, and casually lifts his hand to adjust the flow of air from those little nozzles in the overhead panel. This is how he pictures himself: completely unaffected by the world that affects everyone else.

When Largeman leaves California to attend his mother’s funeral in New Jersey, he also leaves behind his intense regimen of psychological medications–lithium, Prozac, Paxil, etc. Over the course of the next several days, and with the help of his new friend/love interest, Sam (Natalie Portman), he slowly becomes a feeling, thinking human being again–capable of grieving his mother’s loss, falling in love, and forgiving his distant and difficult father.

Garden State is a lovely and charming film. The performances are first-rate and Braff has proven himself a skilled director. He is adept at creating a certain contemplative mood through the use of slow motion and time-lapsed cinematography and music. Music–the music in this film deserves an entire review unto itself. The soundtrack is the the musical equivalent of modern indy filmmaking–New Sincerity pop: The Shins, Iron and Wine, Nick Drake, Paul Simon. The soundtrack album is sure to be a huge hit.

The comedy in the film is dry and occasionally very funny, but a few scenes seem tacked on–as if Braff had been compiling a lot of little funny moments in his notebook and wanted to include as many of them as he could. Most of them worked, fortunately, but added little to the film’s theme/story and I hope he hasn’t used up his whole bag of tricks on his first film–he’ll have nothing left for his next one.

Similarly, there were some show-off shots that likewise seemed superfluous (many of these are in the film’s trailer–it’s a great trailer!). For instance, at Largeman’s mother’s wake, a friend of the family insists that he try on a shirt she has made for him. She explains that she used the same material Largeman’s mother had used when she redecorated the hall bathroom. Cut to a shot of an expressionless Largeman standing in a loud, green shirt in front of a wall bearing the identical pattern. The shot got a chuckle from the audience, but I’m not sure it was worth the trouble of the laborious set-up.

My biggest problem with Garden State is the ending. I don’t want to ruin any surprises, so I’ll just say that the last two scenes of the film are fundamentally different in tone and style from the rest of it. Add to this a straight-from-the-desk-of-Nora-Ephron cliched romantic comedy final beat, and I was left leaving the theater somewhat dissatisfied. This caveat should in no way be taken as a condemnation. I just felt like an otherwise superb first feature was marred by a merely-okay conclusion.

I have been eagerly waiting for the release of Garden State since January and my expectations were pretty high. That the film didn’t let me down is a testament to its charm and grace. Go see it. Pay full price.