Garden State

Ah, my favorite movie. Before Garden State blossomed out of Zach Braff’s mind, Life as a House was my favorite movie. And that’s one I’ve yet to replace and put back into my movie collection. I should do that soon – I haven’t seen that movie in years. But as far as Garden State is concerned, it still reigns as the top contender on my list.

It’s the perfect mix of tragedy and drama and humor and romance. Even in the midst of great tragedy can come pleasantly unexpected things. Such a simple concept makes people hopeful about life and what might be coming their way.

One thing in particular that resonated with me this time is the conversation that Large and Sam have in the pool. The point Large makes is that at a certain point home becomes an imaginary place that doesn’t really exist anymore. That is, of course, until you make a new home for yourself with your family. One day you wake up and realize that home isn’t there anymore, and now it’s up to you to create a new home. This exact thing hit me today, realizing that my best friend and my dad are both leaving what I call home, Florida, and soon my mom and my best friend’s dad will be leaving also. My home really isn’t there anymore, and I don’t know where home will be for me. I’ve always willingly left home, whether it be for school or an internship, but it never really hit me that one day everyone else would move on to and my idea of home will disappear. And as of now I have no idea where I’m going to end up. It’s kind of a scary thought.

Back to Garden State. Another reason I love this movie is because of the actors. In particular Natalie Portman and Peter Sarsgaard. Zach Braff does a great job too, but in this case I commend him more for his writing and directing skills. Natalie Portman portrays the perfect amount of quirkiness and naivety. Peter Sarsgaard, well he’s just an amazing actor in general. He’s capable of doing such a wide variety of roles, and he does the too-old-to-still-be-living-at-home stoner type flawlessly. Not to mention he has the pleasure of saying my favorite line in the movie, “Don’t tease me about my hobbies; I don’t tease you about being an asshole.” Love it!