Garden State
dir. Zack Braff
Opens Fri Aug 13.

If Steven Seagal's On Deadly Ground has taught us anything (aside from the questionable practice of blowing up nature in order to save it), it is that movies where actors direct themselves often represent an opportunity to observe monstrous egotism in its natural, uncut state. From Chaplin to Costner, Ed Burns to Barbra Streisand, too many self-styled auteurs take their opportunities behind the camera as a go-sign to affix themselves squarely in the middle of their created universes, with every additional element a mirror reflecting back at their imagined good side. (Don't sue, Barbra.)

Zack Braff's debut film, Garden State, which he wrote, directed, and stars in, may very well be a similar act of egogasm (when you put Simon and Garfunkel on the soundtrack of your examination of disaffected twentysomethings, you're just asking for it), but it features enough odd grace notes among the rampant navel-gazing to warrant a watch.

Braff, his bemused underplaying from Scrubs fully intact, stars as a lithium-zonked actor clinging to past tenuous success (folks still remember his stirring performance as a retarded quarterback in a TV movie), who, following a family tragedy, returns to New Jersey after nearly a decade of self-imposed exile. As he goes off his meds and begins to gradually allow himself to back out of his withdrawal, lessons are learned, frozen relationships fracture anew, and an outrageously hot local girl from across the tracks (Natalie Portman) throws a lifeline. Alterna-hits run nonstop on the soundtrack throughout, no doubt available in a record store near you.

This is all relatively standard stuff at first glance, but much of the zing of the movie comes from the wobbly curveballs that Braff throws at the formula. Various expository guns discovered in the first act (such as the threatening medical condition of a major character, which would be milked for maximum pathos 99 percent of the time) are allowed to remain unfired in the third. Scenes peter out before or after you'd expect. Secondary characters seem unsure of their own motivations before stumbling off into the wings, and the film features an intriguing streak of off-kilter surrealism in the early sections, reminiscent of the New Asian Wave. (I talked to Braff over the phone about his influences and he mentioned the usual suspects such as Harold and Maude and Annie Hall, but also, surprisingly, Todd Haynes' masterfully creepy Safe, which settles onto the unwary viewer like a bad rash.) It is to Braff's credit that such moments generally come off as thoughtfully factored decisions rather than mere narrative confusion. More the disappointment, then, that the climactic confrontation between father (Ian Holm, magnificent and severely underused) and son features moist-eyed speechifying that wouldn't be out of place in, well, a TV movie about a retarded quarterback.

Braff, who has a history as a still photographer, has a definite eye for the clever image and the occasional arresting composition. (One shot in particular, of the main character blending in chameleon-like among some truly hideous wallpaper, seems destined for shrine status on dorm-room walls everywhere.) Some of his narrative inventions, like the former friend living in an empty mansion after getting filthy rich for inventing soundless Velcro, may be a tad too precious, but his overall feel for the self-conscious slacker in captivity rings true. (He nails the awkwardness of being just a little too old for the kegger, for example, in a way that should make Cameron Crowe jealous.)

He also gets a major boost from his assembled cast. Portman, freed from George Lucas' shackles and back in Beautiful Girls territory (but blessedly minus that earlier film's creepy pedophiliac vibe), simply glows in a role that could easily have crossed over into lethal levels of life-affirming perkiness. That she can carry a monologue about a neglected hamster into lump-in-the-throat territory is perhaps the ultimate testament to her charm. Even better, though, is Peter Sarsgaard as Braff's gravedigger buddy who has a genuine sense of menace that glints through his stoner façade. The dangerously unstable sidekick may be a cliché dating back to Mean Streets, but Sarsgaard makes it seem like his character was too busy committing minor felonies to watch those earlier films, and when the movie takes a seemingly ill-advised turn toward seediness in the third act, briefly threatening to infringe on Boogie Nights territory, he carries it through. The director, sadly, proves to be a bit of a liability in the lead role, with an initially ingratiating underplaying that eventually turns into an unreflecting void. The emotional inaccessibility of the main character may be what the movie's about, after all, but Braff never quite allows us to become aware of the gradual transformation process.

Garden State seems poised to become a monster hit, at least on the indie scale; the Sundance buzz was deafening, and the wordless teaser trailer (available at www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/garden_state/) has led to a genuine Internet phenomenon, with legions of webheads waxing rhapsodic about the movie and proclaiming how repeat viewings have changed their lives. (When I spoke to him, Braff seemed genuinely taken aback by such fan worship, while also good-naturedly admitting that he occasionally scans the message boards for a heads-up.) As much as my inner cynic resists, I can sort of see where some of these folks are coming from. (Pause for a moment to fondly remember the lasting impact of Cusack and his boom box.) Braff's film might not be saying anything new, but at least it finds a reasonably clever, occasionally novel way to say it. As far as self-consciously generation-defining, ego-tripping movies go, you could do a whole lot worse.

editor@thestranger.com