Product Description

GARDEN STATE - DVD Movie

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2794 in DVD
• Brand: FOX Home Entertainment
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Released on: 2004-12-28
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com
Zach Braff (from the TV show Scrubs) stars in his writing/directing debut, Garden State--normally a doomed act of hubris, but Braff pulls it off with unassuming charm. An emotionally numb actor in L.A., Andrew (Braff) comes back to New Jersey after nine years away for his mother's funeral. Andrew avoids his bitter father (Ian Holm, The Sweet Hereafter) and joins old friends (including the superb Peter Sarsgaard, Boys Don't Cry) in a round of parties. Along the way he meets a girl (Natalie Portman, Beautiful Girls) with demons of her own; bit by bit the two offer each other a little healing. Plotwise, Garden State is familiar stuff, a cross between The Graduate and a Meg Ryan movie, but Braff has an eye for goofy but resonant visual images, an ear for lively dialogue, and a great cast. The result is surprisingly fresh and funny. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff), a struggling actor, arrives in his native New Jersey with some extra baggage: his paraplegic mother has possibly committed suicide, he's been on Zoloft since forever, and his one major acting credit is as a retarded quarterback. This would be a difficult burden for any young man, let alone a début movie. But Braff, who also wrote and directed, keeps the tone light with some very funny homecoming scenes. There's a party where Large is greeted as "Jersey's De Niro," a run-in with a high-school friend turned cop, and, like a winning bass line, the smirking wit of his stoner friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard). The movie is also lifted by the presence of Natalie Portman, perhaps the ultimate ethereal home-town girl. Braff eventually takes the movie to emotional places where only the extremely tenderhearted will follow, but there are a lot of nice moments that resonate, and a beautiful soundtrack of moody, interior music. With Ian Holm as the icy father and songs by Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Shins. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker