Garden State

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

The message of Garden State is simple: Don't visit New Jersey unless you have access to Schedule 1 narcotics. Writer-director-star Zach Braff (NBC's Scrubs) plays Andrew "Large" Largeman, an actor who returns to Jersey from L.A. for the first time in years to attend his mother's funeral. After finding his old friends and their new crews (Peter Saarsgard being the most interesting, Method Man being the least), he meets Sam (Natalie Portman) and gains an enlightened, less chemically dependent perspective on life. But not before Ecstasy-inspired games of spin the bottle, straight-faced hamster funerals, and leg-humping Seeing Eye dogs provide absurd moments with the types of laughs you'd never encounter on Must-See TV. Ultimately, though, the central coupling of Large and Sam grinds some of State's momentum to a halt with exhausting conversations reeking with twentysomething anxiety. The alternative soundtrack and weepy make-out sessions reduce this to date-movie material more suitable for your girlfriend, but it still has enough quirky positives—comedy, drugs, New Jersey–bashing—to make it entertaining for her better half. (That's you, genius.)

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