The Iron Yuppie

Zach Braff's Garden State Blog - Very funny guy. I remember hearing once that it takes a very smart person to play a very stupid (or silly) character. I'd believe it. One of the things he does exceptionally well is completely sacrifice himself on the alter of dignity to get the laugh. It's a practice which requires giving up the ego for the sake of the work and he pulls it off exceptionally well.

I saw the movie this weekend, and thought it was very good. The script wonderfully captured the nameless angst that a lot of people experience when then return home and the direction of the movie was quite insightful, especially for a first time director. I was particularly a fan of the camera work; I saw both creativity and a comedic eye for timing and framing. He is a real fan of the overhead perpendicular to ground parallel zoom in shot and the reverse shot that is the exact reverse of that. I'm not sure if that had meaning involved, or was just something that he wanted to do. The supporting characters were fantastic; they added a real richness to the tapestry.

If there was one downside, I thought there were some scenes that could have been reworked to provide a little more depth and a little less cliche. SPOILER FOLLOWS: I found the ending to be an example of this. After so much subtlety, I found the ending dialog between the characters to be a bit stilted. Interestingly, I think that he was both writer and director probably worked against him. I just generally think everyone needs an external voice to weigh in on issues and being that involved in each step of the process makes for a situation where it is impossible to cut or alter scenes that you as the writer or you as the director have become wedded to.

As a long time fan of his work on Scrubs, I'm a huge believer in Mr. Braff's long term potential. Garden State is both very funny and touching movie, and I highly recommend it.