It’s been a decade since the release of Zach Braff’s directorial debut Garden State (2004). By now, Andrew “Large” Largeman would probably be weaned off the copious amounts of medicated empathy force-fed by his father, his sweetheart Sam would’ve killed enough pets to fill a whole other cuddle buddy graveyard, and they would’ve been able to listen to the Shins’ entire discography into the millions. One thing, though, would probably remain the same: the future is still but a haze for the lovelorn neurotics.
Garden State flouts indie cinema tropes in just its first few minutes; it doesn’t kick off with anything engaging or eye-catching or arresting. Garden State, rather, unfolds from a state of catatonia. The protagonist, Andrew, lays like a deflated balloon as he tunes into a voicemail left by his father that coldly informs him of his mother’s death. It’s an almost clinical scene, one that will shoulder even greater meaning as we learn about Andrew’s tortured existence.
Andrew makes his way back to his hometown, leaving his medication in neatly arranged rows lining his bathroom cabinets. When Andrew arrives back in his painfully generic hometown, the chemical void is replaced by relentless headaches and antics with directionless — albeit endearing — burnouts from high school. He reconnects with Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), a drug-addled grave digger whose time is consumed by scavenging for his next bong rip and lifting jewelry off the bodies he buries, as well as a slew of other equally neurotic characters. The characters are quirky to a point of surrealism, a whole island of misfit toys festering in a nondescript patch of Jersey.
Following an ecstasy bender and a revolving door of remember whens and look at you nows, Andrew heads to the doctor to discover the source of his headaches. Not surprisingly, Andrew’s plan derails, and instead of leaving the doctor’s office with a diagnosis, he leaves with a whimsical pathological liar: Sam (Natalie Portman). The pair bond over Sam’s graveyard full of pets lost but never forgotten, joyrides on Andrew’s inherited Dnepr, and finding pieces of themselves in one another. The seeming effortlessness between Andrew and Sam is just as sweet and tender as their emotional states. There are no love scenes, no outbursts of friction — it’s just a glorious state of flux as they try to make it all up as they go.
The film’s soundtrack acts as a character in itself, spanning as expansive an emotional minefield as Andrew or Sam. Handpicked by Braff, the understated hum of “New Slang” and the vast pools of reverb created by Iron and Wine’s “Such Great Heights” burrow into our psyches and allow the film to transcend its seemingly linear story. As Andrew is forced to face some of the demons that doomed him to a medicated existence and the cause of the irreparable damage he has inflicted upon his family, the soundtrack becomes a source of both consolation and anguish.
Garden State leans toward a manic pixie dream world, where responsibilities are skirted, friendships are revived seemingly without explanation, and emotions materialize with little explanation or encumbrance. Not unlike Andrew’s direction in life, the film tends to meander into idealistic tributaries and half-baked hail mary plays for well-adjustment. One would expect a grand revelation at the end of a film that’s garnered a title as “The Anti-Graduate 2004,” but Garden State is unassuming in its quest for clarity. It’s lugubrious yet hopeful, thoughtful yet organic. it’s like life in retrospect — the poetry and warning signs aren’t visible unless they’re in the rearview mirror.
In Garden State’s timidness to drive home a grand moral or pen a heroic happy ending, it is a pinnacle romance of the Prozac Nation. Just like nothing is something, being alone doesn’t quite mean you’re abandoned. Because a safe haven could be just a few moments away, whether it’s in a new life-changing song or an abandoned house or in the blank space between here and nowhere. Garden State maps that journey and finds plenty on the way.
Article by Shannon Shreibak. Follow her on Twitter @ShannonShreibak.