This weekend’s movie extravaganza was Garden State, starring, written and directed by Zach Braff. Braff is perhaps best known for his role on the TV show Scrubs, but here he stretches beyond the comedy antics and tries to tell us a story of considerable warmth, emotion and humanity. Braff plays Andrew Largeman, an L.A. actor who returns home to New Jersey to attend the funeral of his mother. Largemen has lived a life dominated by anti-depressants and ineffective therapy, and for the first time begins to realize that he’s better off without chemicals. While he is back, he meets Sam (played by Natalie Portman), and strikes up an unlikely friendship with her.

The movie alternates between moments of significant comedy and moments of surprising poignancy. The one slightly disturbing thing that I found was the less pleasant parts of the plot kept nagging at me, and I kept wondering whether I was being lead down a certain path by the comedy, and that I would be emotionally ambushed by some strong tragedy at the end. But in the end, the film is actually rather gentle, no strong tragedy climaxes the film, and it remains an extended sketch of life.

I think Braff did a marvelous job with this film. If I have a criticism of it, it is perhaps in its subtlety and its gentleness. Still, Braff managed to coax a convincing and charming performance out of Natalie Portman, which is something that George Lucas could not. I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of his work as a writer and director. Well done. I would rank this movie as 8/10: not the kind of thing I normally go see, but I’ll make up for it by going to see Hero or Anaconda 2 really soon.