MOVIE · 2004

Garden State

ComedyDramaRomance102 min

After his mother’s funeral brings him back to New Jersey, struggling actor Andrew Largeman starts drifting through old haunts, old friends, and a tense reunion with his psychiatrist father. Zach Braff is Andrew, numbed for years by medication and newly off his antidepressants; Peter Sarsgaard’s Mark, now working as a gravedigger, pulls him back into the odd rhythms of home. Then Andrew meets Natalie Portman’s Sam, a talkative young woman with her own medical troubles, and the visit begins to stir up family resentment, awkward reconnections, and emotions he’s spent years keeping at a distance.