Garden State
Garden State
Written and Directed by: Zach Braff
Starring: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard
Garden State is one of those ‘plotless’ movies. Like Igby Goes Down and Lost in Translation, it to most people is simply “a bunch of stuff that happens”. No definable climax and a resolution that won’t seem to everyone like a real ending. It�s a character driven film that requires an investment from the cast involved and superb writing. With this in mind Garden State is amazingly successful, not to mention funnier than both of the films I just mentioned.
The film follows Andrew Largeman as he returns home from L.A. to attend a funeral. He has not been successful in his acting career other than a TV movie where he played a handicapped football player. Feeling numb to the world around him, he visits old friends he generally no longer can relate to, and some new people that bring him out of his shell and give him the opportunity to change the direction in his life.
Sound like cheese? Like one of those “Hallmark” movies that wins miniseries Emmys? I guess it does. But it works. Zach Braff’s writing is funny, his dialogue and characters are incredibly realistic, and this puts his characters into strange situations while at the same time making them feel like everyday things. No matter what quirks the characters have or places they go that none of us have, the characterization pulls you right in there. For me personally there were indirect connections to my own weird stories and experiences that have happened in my life. To be overly arty about it the film says a lot about the little things and quirks in life that make up everyone and make them special or unique.
What gives it such impact is the quality of the performances. Peter Sarsgaard is that guy who never does anything with his life. And its not a Jack Black “Orange County” type bum, this guy is real and completely believable. Natalie Portman gives the best performance I’ve ever seen her in, Oscar worthy even, as first off “the love interest” but is much more as a borderline insane pathological liar. She is introduced as one of those obnoxious types everyone knows who talks to much with you when you’re in a bar, store, or in Garden State, a waiting room. By getting to know her, Braff’s Largeman is changed in a way that has fuelled a massive Internet debate about the ending of the film.
I wont give it away, but as I mentioned it has been questioned by a lot of people about whether or not the film ending is what it was intended to be. Its easy to look at the ending of an indie film that doesn�t end badly for the characters and assume it was Hollywood pressure, but you have to ask yourself if it is consistent with the story that has been told. To me it was and is completely appropriate.
Giving extra weight to the film are amazing and expensive looking cinematography that is usually not present in a lot of smaller indie releases. As well the film has an amazing soundtrack featuring Iron and Wine and others, that give the scenes some extra weight, and like Lost in Translation’s music/score, a whole lot of sentiment. — Goon
Comments (5)
I really want to comment further on the ending of this film so if you don’t want it spoiled then don’t read any further. Moving from that the ending did feel like it felt pressure from Hollywood, but at the same time would have been sort of pointless if it ended with Large leaving to figure out his life on his own. It seems like he barely had a life before and he would have been going back to nothing and leaving behind perhaps one of the true joys he had ever experienced in his life that being Portman. The ending was great, not a crier but fucking gorgeous all the same.
Posted by jackson on August 24th, 2004SPOILER
it works for me because it ties bck to the begininng of the film with the plane crash. In the first one, he’s so numbed by the drugs and his life that he doesnt care.
He’s changed enough over the course of the film that by the end he’s definitely NOT numb and is capable of making such a choice based on emotions. it works.
Posted by Goon on August 24th, 2004MORE SPOILER***
What if the ending is not upbeat and happy. I think that as he thinks he learns how short life can be, he is in the plane crash from the beginning. Ultimately he got on the plane and left. The ending is Sam being her cumpulsive lying self, this time making her life more liveable by imagining his return. The phone booths and over the top acting by Zach at the end makes this explaination plausable. Also, the beginning plane crash was a flight FROM Newark. Thoughts??
Posted by Ivan on September 5th, 2004MORE SPOILER -
Figuring out the proper context for the first scene (the plane about to crash) within the rest of the movie is how I spend my waking hours these days…
Large’s expression (not panicking, but intensely “into it”, whatever “it” is) struck me as absolutely the same in BOTH the airplane scenes. This raised the question if the first airplane scene is simply out of order and that the viewer needs to decide where to displace the first scene to.
If you were to take the first scene and insert it in the end, between the scene where he takes his seat on the plane and where he is in an ethereal baggage claim area bathed in a heavenly light (my description)… Then you have a very different ending. E.g. …
1) He died in a plane crash leaving Newark and his heaven is getting to get back together with Sam.
2) He is about to die in a plane crash and in his mind he is imagining a different outcome, one in which he gets back together with Sam. The phone in the back of the seat in front of him is his last hope of connecting with Sam and he stares at it quite intensely.
My questions are the following regarding the two airplane scenes:
A) Is Zach dressed identically in both scenes?
B) Is Zach sitting in exactly the same spot in both scenes?
C) Are the people around Zach the same people in both scenes?
If the answer to all of these is yes, then the two scenes have to be part of the same event, a single and fateful plane ride out of Newark.
Without a willingness to investigate the meaning of the first airplane scene, the ending is either “too Hollywood” (and out of character with the rest of the film), or “too Heavenly” to be real.
Please post answers if you have them, I’m dying to know one way or the other.
Posted by Jeff Vandegrift on October 6th, 2004the answer to a} is no but your thinking too literly his dream was a forshadowing the incident. the experiences he had on his trip home changed his desteny from going to die in the plane crash to not dieing in the plane crash. Zach is not depressed in the second scene because he is not on medication in the second scene and he has had a life changing experience coming home. in the bathtub scene at the end of the movie he finaly opens up and says he finaly feels as if he is at home. B} no he is not sitting in the same seet because dreams are different than reality (when scenes dont match eachother it is conconsidered discontinuity editing). c} no they are not the same people. but the reason you are suppost to belive that the plane is going to crash because you hear the fasten your seet belt and it is the exact same shot from the first scene to the second scene. When you hear that ding you are suppost to recall to the beginging.
Posted by trent on April 9th, 2006Leave a Reply