GARDEN STATE

Director: Zach Braff (no major film work)
Starring: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard

This is a young person movie - in good ways and in bad. It's a pretty darn funny account of a numb young man finally returning home after running away to Los Angeles. Our early-twenties hero finally begins to confront his confused childhood and take the first real steps into maturity. He finds love. Unfortunately, he also spends a lot of the movie partying with his old high school friends. Yes, this film is frankly adolescent in its theme and plot. I'm quite sure that this adolescent view point was why the Hollywood powers-that-be deemed the film worthy of a national release. And, as expected, these areas of the movie were also the weakest. The film was at it's best, though, when it lost its desire to be cool - and it did do this at times. It's unfortunate that there weren't enough of the moments to rate it really highly. There were enough, and enough youthful exuberance, to rate it well, however. Not much to love in this film, but a fair amount to enjoy.

Standouts: Interesting, quirky storyline.
Blowouts: It's a kid's flick. Tried far too hard to be hip.

Grade: B+