Garden State - 2004
Updated: Nov 26, 2022
At the time of my initial viewing, Garden State completely changed the way I look at movies. This sounds like a major overstatement for such a seemingly modest film, but I assure you it is not. The film came out the year I turned 21. This turned out to be very fitting for me, as it introduced me to a very "adult" way of approaching cinema.
In my opinion, Garden State is emblematic of a lot of important trends. It practically screams independent in terms of production and distribution. It's soundtrack is all-time great. (The Shins?? Nick Drake? Hello!) It weds "indie" rock to "indie" films and couples that with a writer, director, star turn that is idiosyncratic in a delightfully non-Wes kind of way. It felt wholly new and original to me, at a time when independent stories like this one had just started taking off (see: Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, etc).
Watching it again all these years later, some things have changed for me, but many have stayed the same. On the critical side, this narrative arc has become somewhat familiar. Coming of age tales. The "returning home" saga. The death of a loved one as catalyst for family/personal transformation. And the goodbye in the airport trope has been recycled ad nauseum by now (though usually not to such a freaking dynamite needle drop)! Some of the characters are a little flatter than once perceived, and I'm not sure WHAT to think about the usually sure-footed Peter Sarsgaard.
Even so, Garden State still thrives majestically on the backs of two people. First, writer, director, lead Zach Braff whose tale feels both personal, grounded, and yet timeless. Perhaps this is one of the first pure expressions of "millennial angst." Not to be outdone, the second is the reason many of us fell in love with this whole affair in the first place - the quirky little girl next door, Natalie Portman. This may STILL be my all-time favorite Portman performance. She oozes ebullience from her every pore. Her bubbliness and naivety, her ticks and affectations. Her willingness to go for broke in the role gives us some tremendous line readings, and she is the perfect foil for the stoic, largely flat-lined Braff. Together they still make a kind of movie magic all these years later.
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