Garden State

(2004) dir. Zach Braff

As Geoff Andrews puts it in his review that appeared in Time Out, “This is a movie where ‘sensitivity’ and ‘sincerity’ are signposted by songs by Paul Simon and Nick Drake, which I guess says it all. Not subtle.” It’s as if Zach Braff’s film takes the sensibility that can alternately be described as “twee,” “indie,” or “alternative,” and distills into one neat, tidy package that now induces nausea in me, as cute as I found it back in 2004. Natalie Portman plays Samantha, a quirky, chronic liar who suffers from epilepsy and is a general social misfit. Doesn’t this alone speak volumes? Natalie Portman is really hot, and I don’t buy her playing such a character.