by Hank Brockett
Radiohead fans knew this was just a continuation of the odd, almost automated queries and responses peppered throughout the materials for “OK Computer” and the “Airbag/How am I Driving?” EP. Those believing to be in the know, wrapped up in the minutia it all, reveled in the continuation of theme - a true artistic vision carried through multiple mediums. A far greater number breezed past the DVD’s existence on Best Buy’s Special Interest shelves, a disc lost among WWE pay-per-views and hot rod racing girl features.
Zach Braff’s writing/directing debut announced its existence as a trailer in front of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Charlie Kaufman’s disappearing ode to disappearing feelings. Braff himself enticed a potential audience with his charm on NBC’s “Scrubs,” an enthusiastic fan base masking little award show or network love. The trailers accompanying “Garden State” introduced Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic” and Alexander Payne’s “Sideways,” two films by other writer/directors more respected than anything else. Then, there’s the soundtrack songs: The Shins, The Postal Service, Nick Drake, Coldplay. All so beautifully sad.
And there it was: an entire package based around all my likes and pleasures. Not just mine, of course, there’s a whole little demographic there: disaffected but hopeful, empty somewhere we believe a movie/song/poem/painting can fill. There isn’t enough there for anyone to confuse us with the mainstream, just enough to get a few things made. A lot of these people are professional critics, where a new cause is just around the corner where art and commerce meet.
These artistic endeavors aren’t created in a vacuum, and so much of what’s come out lately seems so personal. It’s as if these are little creations for a group of friends eager for the distraction, forsaking that other artistic impulse to change directions -- and sometimes flip the bird -- if things seem too comfortable. What we’re left with is a movie like “Garden State,” a film so likable that it’s much too impolite to say it leaves us wanting.
Like a baseball team that makes the playoffs but doesn’t win it all, there’s still plenty to celebrate here. More than the teen comedies written by people trying to put themselves in the shoes of today’s youth, “Garden State” hits the beats and rhythms of everyday conversation with Ringo-like precision. Never has the simple phrase, “Definitely …” seemed so true. And the humor flows so naturally that the quirks of Sam and Large’s friends’ lives never seem so, well, quirky. But this doesn’t disguise the missed target, a feeling still left both unspoken and untouched.
A lot has been made of Braff’s supposed influences, particularly the way Andrew “Large” Largeman updates the adrift Benjamin Braddock of “The Graduate.” This isn’t an unwanted advance; the soundtrack also features Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy in New York” and it was 37 years ago when the duo’s “Graduate” music helped usher in legitimate pop soundtracks for more than just Beatles and Elvis movies.
Thirty-seven? And in all that time, each subsequent generation somewhat versed in the classics yearns for their own “Graduate” -- something that speaks for these times and these unique roadblocks to growing up. Braff uses sedative medication as a means for his character’s haze, and its slow removal from his system coincides with his awakening as to what makes him happy in life. In both movies, happiness is aided by a warm girl (Katherine Ross as the beautiful Elaine in “The Graduate” and Natalie Portman embodying the skewed yet lovable Sam in “Garden State”).
These awakenings of purpose, more than anything, show the difference between making coming-of-age films in 1967 and 2004. In “The Graduate,” Ben latches onto the lone dramatic impulse that comes close to his heart. Elaine becomes a race to win, a goal to obtain and maybe just the ticket out of constant questions regarding the next step in tapping his potential. That he never reaches true happiness in the film (inferred from the famous long take of both Ben and Elaine staring silently into the void of “What’s next?” as they fade to black) captured a truth “Garden State” tries to embrace.
This being 2004, however, there’s nothing silent about Large’s awakening. I resist the temptation to call it a “Real World“-ification of personal development, but Braff confuses personal growth with personal communication. Large wants to rid himself of the antiseptic attitude and feel both pain and joy, but he talks through his thoughts with a much too-organized stream of consciousness. We’re left with long soliloquies to his dad and to Sam, a wellspring of verbalized feelings that works much better on paper than on screen. The stylized storytelling of the first 30 minutes -- constructed with long shots, a palette of grays and silent sighs -- eases into its place as foggy memory.
On the inside cover of the Radiohead DVD, there’s another phrase. “Reflections are a part of everyday life. Don’t let them bother you. Keep reaching out to others.” Where attempts are made there is hope, and hopes -- like the sober Large’s words -- spring eternal.