Garden State (film)

Garden State
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Zach Braff
Written by	Zach Braff
Produced by	Gary Gilbert Dan Halsted Pamela Abdy Richard Klubeck
Starring	Zach Braff Ian Holm Method Man Natalie Portman Peter Sarsgaard
Cinematography	Miramax International (International; through Buena Vista International[1][2] )
Release dates	January 16, 2004 (2004-01-16) (Sundance) July 28, 2004 (2004-07-28) (United States)
Running time	102 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.5 million
Box office	$35.8 million

Garden State is a 2004 American romantic comedy-drama film, written and directed by Zach Braff, and starring Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm. The film centers on Andrew Largeman (Braff), a 26-year-old actor/waiter who returns to his hometown in New Jersey after his mother dies. Braff based the film on his real life experiences. It was filmed in April and May 2003 and released on July 28, 2004. New Jersey was the main setting and primary shooting location.^[3]

Garden State received positive reviews and was a box office success. It was an official selection of the

Andrew leaves Los Angeles and returns home to New Jersey to attend the funeral. He recognizes the grave-diggers as old friends Mark and Dave, who invite him to a party that night. At home, Andrew's father gets him a doctor's appointment for headaches that he has been having.

Later that night, Andrew goes to the party where he meets up with Mark, Dave, and Jesse, an old friend who has just earned a fortune after creating silent

Later, Andrew and Jesse sit in the cemetery as Mark digs another grave. Andrew observes Mark stealing jewelry from the corpse he is burying. Andrew then returns to Sam's house, and the two spend the rest of the day together, joining his friends later at Jesse's mansion. Andrew tells Sam that he pushed his mother in frustration when he was nine years old, knocking her over a broken dishwasher and leaving her paraplegic; he says that his father blames him for his mother's paralysis and put him on medication to "curb the anger" he supposedly harbors. Sam listens, and Andrew admits his feelings for her.

The next day, Mark tells Andrew that he needs help "tracking down" a going-away present for him. Sam, Andrew, and Mark spend the day together, ending it in a quarry in Newark where Mark talks to a man named Albert, who is employed in keeping intruders out of the quarry. The three discuss the reasons why Albert and his wife choose to live in the quarry. Albert explains that living there and exploring the quarry is "doing something that's completely unique, that's never been done before," mirroring an earlier speech by Sam. Finally, Albert explains that what actually matters is living with his family. Andrew is inspired by the conversation, and outside in the rain, he climbs atop a derelict crane and screams into the quarry, joined by Sam and Mark. He and Sam then share a kiss.

When Sam and Andrew look at the gift later on, it turns out to be Andrew's mother's favorite pendant, one of the items Mark stole from her grave, sold, and subsequently located. Andrew eventually talks with his father, and states that he was not to blame for his mother's accident and that he will live the rest of his life without medication. He forgives his father and says he wants to build a better relationship with him.

The morning after, Andrew says his goodbyes to Sam at the airport while she begs him not to leave. He acknowledges that she has changed his life but also recognizes that he still has to fix his personal problems before continuing the relationship. Andrew boards the flight, and Sam is left crying in a telephone booth. Andrew, changing his mind, returns to Sam and says he does not want to waste any more of his life without her. He wonders what to do next, and the two then kiss.

Cast

• depressed
  , heavily medicated, struggling young actor who waits tables in a Vietnamese restaurant. When he was nine years old, he accidentally paralyzed his mother by pushing her over a dishwasher door. He has not cried or felt any significant emotions for several years, mainly as a result of the medication he has been supplied with by his estranged father.
• compulsive liar, who openly admits to her casual dishonesty and frequently ponders what makes her do it. She says she works at a law office as a paralegal
  , and lives with her equally peculiar mother and her adopted African sibling, Titembay.
• marijuana
  , frequently attending wild parties; he also makes money by stealing jewelry from the people he buries and exploiting loopholes in store return policies
• Ian Holm as Gideon Largeman, Andrew's father and psychiatrist, whose passive demeanor hides deep-seated grief that his family has not been "happy." He still thinks Andrew's anger is responsible for his late wife's paralysis and has tried to use lithium and other medications to "control" Andrew's emotions in a futile attempt to bring happiness to his family
• Jean Smart as Carol, Mark's mother, a recovering alcoholic, who sees a wealth of potential in her son
• Armando Riesco as Jesse, another school friend of Mark and Andrew who has made a fortune and bought a mansion with money he has earned from inventing a silent alternative to Velcro fabric
• Jackie Hoffman as Sylvia Largeman: Andrew's aunt, who sings the Commodores's "Three Times a Lady" at her sister-in-law's funeral
• Method Man as Diego, a bellhop at a luxury hotel who hosts peeping sessions of various hotel rooms
• Alex Burns as Dave, another old school friend who now works as a grave-digger with Mark
• Ron Leibman as Dr. Cohen, a neurologist whom Andrew visits at the beginning of the film
• Denis O'Hare in a cameo appearance^[4] as Albert, one of the "guardians of the abyss"
• Jim Parsons as Tim, an old acquaintance of Mark and Andrew, and the boyfriend of Mark's mother, who works as a knight at Medieval Times
• Michael Weston as Kenny the Cop, a former classmate of Andrew's from high school, he is now employed as a police officer in their New Jersey neighborhood
• Ann Dowd as Olivia, Sam's mother
• Ato Essandoh as Titembay, Sam's adopted brother
• Geoffrey Arend as Karl Benson, another former high-school classmate of Andrew's; works at Handi-World

Production

Garden State was Braff's feature directing and writing debut. The title of the film was originally intended to be Large's Ark, in reference to Braff's character (note that Albert mentions his own ark in the movie), but he changed it because no one understood what it meant.^[5] The title alludes both to the nickname for New Jersey, and lines from Andrew Marvell's poem "The Garden" ("Such was that happy garden-state/While man there walked without a mate").

Garden State was filmed over 25 days in April and May 2003, with a budget of $2.5 million; much of it was provided by

Braff has cited such films as Harold and Maude, Woody Allen films (specifically Annie Hall and Manhattan), and the films of Alexander Payne as influences on Garden State.^[6]

Music

The music that accompanied the film was hand-picked by Braff. Commenting on the selections, he said that "Essentially, I made a mix CD with all of the music that I felt was scoring my life at the time I was writing the screenplay."^[7]

Braff won a

Themes

The protagonist's father has been "protecting" him from his own feelings with pills, namely lithium carbonate.^[8] Braff describes the themes of the movie as "love, for lack of a better term. And it's a movie about awakening. It's a movie about taking action. It's a movie about how life is short, go for it now. My character says, 'I'm 26 years old, and I've spent my whole life waiting for something else to start. Now I realize that this is all there is, and I'm going to try to live my life like that'".^[9] "I have this theory that your body goes through puberty in its teens, and the mind goes through puberty in your twenties," he says. "[Andrew] is dealing with issues that you are going through all the time going into your thirties. He's lost and lonesome, which is something I definitely felt in my twenties".^[10]

The film is partly autobiographical, depicting Braff's own emotions while he was writing the screenplay. He described that "When I wrote Garden State, I was completely depressed, waiting tables and lonesome as I've ever been in my life. The script was a way for me to articulate what I was feeling; alone, isolated, 'a dime a dozen' and homesick for a place that didn't even exist."^[11]

Release

The film was first screened on January 16, 2004, at the

From March until mid July, it screened at other film festivals until it received a limited release on July 28 in North America. It became only the fourth non-documentary feature to top the chart that year, as calculated by per screen average, since Memorial Day weekend.

Stephen Gilula, president of distribution at Fox Searchlight, attributed the film's gradual success to word of mouth and a publicity tour by Braff leading up to the film's theatrical debut. Gilula said, "Zach [Braff] had a cross-country tour, and we [organized] word of mouth screenings, where we had to turn people away. Zach did Q&As following [the screenings]."^[13] From late 2004 through mid-2005, Garden State was shown at more festivals and was released in over 30 countries. In limited release, the film earned about $26.7 million in North American box office, and a total of $35.8 million worldwide.^[1]

Reception

Critical response

Garden State received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 86% approval rating, based on 192 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Delivering a quirky spin on familiar twentysomething tropes -- with a cannily-placed soundtrack -- Garden State has enough charm to mark a winning debut for first-time director Zach Braff."^[3] On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 67 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".^[14]

Peter Debruge of

Some reviews were more mixed. Todd McCarthy of Variety said "Feels too piecemeal and ultimately inconsequential."^[17] Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote: "Garden State coasts on this considerable charm until it hits a brick wall in its final segments".^[18]

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Natalie Portman's character Sam has been used as an example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, a term that was coined soon after Garden State was released, though in reference to another movie.^[19][20][21]

Accolades

After its limited release in theaters, the film gained more popularity during its DVD release on December 28, 2004, which includes commentaries, deleted scenes, and featurettes.

It was first released on Blu-ray in the UK on February 19, 2012.^[24] The Blu-ray was released in the US on March 4, 2014.^[25]

References

External links

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