I watched my favourite romantic comedy last Thursday: Zach Braff’s “Garden State”. (Eh, this one was written about one month ago; I must have forgotten to submit it…)

It really is a magnificent little movie, which Braff not only wrote and directed, but also starred in. He played the main character, Andrew Largeman, a young man who returns to New Jersey (if my memory serves me right; I’m quite sure this is the state known as the “Garden State” — something which is slightly amusing, if you know that for example Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Soviet Union are sometimes refered to as “gardening states”, in the meaning that their leaders tried to treat them as a gardener treats his garden) to attend his mother’s funeral. He’s been away from home for almost ten years, and he’s been on some kind of sedative (or “happy pills”, or whatever they call them this year; the gist of it is that these pills have prevented him from experiencing strong emotions) for half his life. The last few years of his life has been spent in L.A., where he first failed as an actor and then began working as a waiter in a Vietnamese restaurant. Now he’s back home, and tries to get some order into his life. Among other things, he stops taking his pills, meets up with old friends, and gain some new ones.

“Garden State” is a nice mix of typical independent and more standard Hollywood movies. Where indie movies often focus so much on theme and atmosphere as to lose sight of the plot entirely, and Hollywood usually only have plot (or at least something resembling one :P ), “Garden State” manages to do both. And while neither theme nor plot are what I’d call strikingly original, they are quite well handled. With the exception of the final scene in the airport, the theme never gets awkwardly obvious, remaining for the most part hidden as subtext rather than coming up in the day in dialogue. And even where it is expressed in dialogue, it is usually done so elegantly enough, with the exception of said scene in the airport.

The acting’s also quite good; the only thing I have to complain about here is that Braff’s facial expressions at times seem a tad weird, especialy when he’s supposed to be happy or excited, but as both happiness and excitement are kinda strong emotions — and the two in combination even more so — I’m willing to let it pass as a consequence of his character’s sedation and lack of familiarity with such things. All the other actors are splendid, from Ian Holmes and Nathalie Portman, to Peter Sarsgaard and Method Man.

So, how do I rate this one? At a fine 9.0/10, methinks. It is, after all, one of my favourite movies. And the soundtrack is awesome, with Coldplay, Paul Simon, The Shins, and Nick Drake.