Garden State

Recently, after Hurricane Sandy and it being close to Thanksgiving I’ve been very homesick. So, I decided to watch Garden State directed by Zach Braff because it always reminds me of home. Obviously (hence the title), the film takes place in a suburban town in New Jersey. Zach Braff, the main character, is an overly medicated struggling actor in LA who goes home to jersey because his mother died. Within the first few minutes of this film, we know so much about his character. His room is blank and white, and his medicine cabinet is completely filled with medicine. Without any use of dialogue, we can tell by the cinematography and facial expressions about this character.  I try to use this technique in most of the films I make. Less dialogue, and more cinematography to tell about the character since I have such a short amount of time to convey my story. 

Most of this movie is Andrew (Zach Braff) meeting up with old friends and basically doing nothing around his town, other then drugs and explore abandoned places. This reminds me a lot of my home town, most of the kids are so bored and are always doing nothing. Although people say this movie is about people do nothing, it has a lot of sentimental value to me. All the character’s are very relatable and the situations seem real. Although there isn’t much of a climax other then their love story, or a any action in it, it holds my attention the hold time. 

Another great aspect of this movie is the soundtrack. Zach Braff claims he picked out each song of this soundtrack based on his life at the time of writing this film. I felt this music accurately portrayed the mood of the film at the time and fit to each characters emotions. I didn’t think it was too much and was totally worth obtaining all the copyright information. A lot of my favorite bands today were featured in this film, and it basically started my interest in indie music. This film has a lot of great elements, and whenever I watch it, it reminds me of home. Even if you’re not from Jersey, this is a great film to watch, whatever mood you’re in. It has kind of a sappy love story, but it isn’t cheesy when put in the context of this film.