A Trip to the Garden State
I'm watching 2004's 'Garden State' for the first time ahead of the 20th anniversary benefit show in Los Angeles in March.
Zach Braff is one of the entertainment industry’s more underrated Renaissance men. Perhaps best known for his role in the iconic television series Scrubs, there’s a lot more to Braff than you’d realize if you never looked beyond that. Acting, writing, directing, theatre, podcasting…hell, he even opened an oyster bar in New York City. But, whenever he comes up in my social circle, the conversation inevitably moves to a film I missed along the way that Braff wrote and directed, Garden State.
Last October, Braff announced a benefit concert set for March 29, 2025 featuring artists from that fabled Garden State soundtrack. The show will benefit The Midnight Mission, an organization whose mission is to help homeless individuals in Southern California. What a fantastic way to honor the film after its 20th anniversary. For me, the news served as a reminder of the stranglehold this film had on my social circle in 2004, and it gave me an opportunity to finally see it. If not now, when?
What is it that makes this film stick with people? Two decades after its release, it’s still discussed as an impactful tale set to a killer soundtrack (that won a Grammy, mind you). I remember it being a sort of rallying cry for the sad white boy…which…makes it a little weird for me given I was the saddest of sad white boys in 2004. Not…like…actually sad…just the kind of sad that teenage boys who have no idea how to interact with people feel. I was listening to The Used and Taking Back Sunday at the time. Garden State would’ve hit me like a ton of bricks back then. I should have seen it - that’s my point! Even now, I’m wondering if we should credit this film with the onset of the emo movement. I had to watch it. I had to see what everyone was talking about in the lobby of Rocketown before we saw The Spill Canvas.
“It was time to grow up,” Michael Weston’s Kenny tells Braff’s Andrew Largeman (also known as “Large” throughout the film) after pulling him over in what appears to be a World War II era motorcycle with a sidecar attached to it. It’s a central theme in Garden State. It’s something we all go through, and it’s an easy message to resonate with an audience. What this film really sinks its teeth into is the concept of the crossroads - specifically when we’re met with change. How do we move beyond our trauma? Where do we find hope when all we’ve known is pain? What’s the tradeoff between functioning and thriving?
Large (I hope he doesn’t mind me calling him “Large” - seems like that might’ve been reserved for close friends) talks about how one day, the house you grew up in just isn’t the house you grew up in anymore. Life goes on and eventually, you end up homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. It’s an exploration of regret, even if we don’t necessarily know it at the time when he’s delivering this message to Sam (Natalie Portman) in the pool. The passing of time is inevitable. Things change. But, it’s time that you can never get back. It’s clear that Large carries this with him, and when we find out why, well…it’s a profound moment that has us all looking in the mirror and asking how much of our own lives are defined by that metaphorical quarter inch piece of plastic.
Braff plays this character to perfection. It’s done with a medicated sense of numbness that masks a deeper pain. There’s a helplessness to Large that I’m not even sure he feels. Maybe he wants more. Maybe he’s unsure. But, it’s clear that he always carries it with him, even in the moments of awkwardly timed humor.
Braff had a fantastic sparring partner in Portman. Portman’s Sam is quirky. She’s interesting enough to capture Andrew’s intrigue and she’s witty enough to make us laugh. In a way, she’s battling her own sense of helplessness, but in a much more magnetizing way. We see this in a particularly moving scene set in Sam’s pet cemetery. They’re burying her hamster when she begins to break down and cry about Andrew’s mom. When they actually say goodbye to the hamster, she says “I hope you liked me.” What a lonely thing to say.
Garden State thrives far beyond its pensive sadness though. Sure, it has a soundtrack like melatonin that will make any scene kid happy. But, the film is one big slice of life to boot. Andrew has to deal with his loss and grief. There’s the “homecoming” trope and how it may stir certain feelings within us…how you’re always seeing someone you know in your hometown (that’s low key annoying). There’s the essence of falling in love in your 20s. And, of course, the film reminds us of the therapeutic quality of yelling as loud as we can into the void.
Ultimately, we learn that it’s the hope of love that may guide us through that crossroads and pull us beyond our trauma. There’s the presentation of love as the great light that can guide you out of the darkness. “You gotta hear this one song - it’ll change your life,” Sam tells Andrew in the lobby of the doctor’s office, effectively lighting a flare in the wilderness of Andrew’s heart. Perhaps we’d all be so lucky as to find someone who can pull us out of our helplessness. “I look forward to a good cry,” Sam later tells Andrew in a bar. Yeah, this whole movie feels like one big good cry. Rating: 3.5/5.