Garden State

Zach Braff from TV’s Scrubs wrote, directed and stars in this goofy, melancholy, seriocomic slice of life that generated an auspicious buzz at this year’s Sundance Film and U.S. Comedy Arts festivals. Andrew Largeman (Braff) spent most of his life emotionally numbed by antidepressants prescribed by his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). He returns to his hometown for the funeral of his paraplegic mother after making a very minor acting splash in Hollywood (as a retarded football quarterback). He also quits taking his medication to see what may happen and meets an epileptic pathological liar (Natalie Portman) who inspires him to open his heart and embrace the joy and pain of being human, as the film strains under an overload of strange characters and events.