GARDEN STATE - 2004
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What enticed me to watch this movie was the colorful DVD cover, New Slang by The Shins, and the promise of Natalie Portman; however, what I got during this movie was so much more than that. Written, directed, and starring Zach Braff, he delivers an unforgettably empathetic performance as Andrew Largeman, a deeply troubled young man who returns back home to New Jersey (hence the title of the movie) for his mother's funeral from Los Angeles after alienating himself from his family for a decade.
The lostness and loneliness of Andrew's life is not only seen in the dialogue or plot of the movie but also in Zach Braff's eyes. Braff so deeply portrays a man in search of reason, it is hard to not sit there and identify with his character. Eventually that loneliness is consoled when he meets Sam, played by the flawless Natalie Portman. They instantly connect over the fact that the both of them are messed-up, disoriented souls. Together they form a special bond that eventually leads to something more while in the mean time helping to improve the other's troubling qualities.
It was easy to let myself be drawn into this coming-of-age story; it doesn't get to mopey or whiny, it's exciting at all the right parts and melancholy at all the right times. The end of the movie doesn't leave one feeling particularly sad or angered or even over-joyed, it's a feeling of total empathy. And that is the true marking of a bona fide coming-of-age film.