Garden State
Netflix | Amazon
Overall Rating: 4/10
Meets Expectations: -1
Apparent Rating: 3/10
The summary for Garden State says it is a “whimsical comedy”. What? Nothing in this was funny. Oh, sure, people tell you that a movie about someone going home for their mother’s funeral and seeing what their old friends have gotten up to is bound to be hilarious. But the mother killed herself after being stuck in a wheelchair for 20 years because the son broke her neck when he was 9. The old friends are grave diggers, but only for Jewish funerals. Everyone uses hardcore drugs at the post funeral party. The main character has been medicated by his doctor-father for decades in a way that is tantamount to child abuse.
While “back home” the main character meets a woman at the neurologist’s office. She’s a chronic liar and wears a The Thing helmet and kills her pets.
The whole thing is like this 90 minute stoner meltdown and I really have absolutely no idea why anyone thought this was a good story. Perhaps if one is desperately aching for more fiction from Stalinist Russia and the Gulag era, then this might be worth watching. But in my opinion, all these characters are so crushed, hopeless, and miserable that death would be a kindness.
Total downer of a movie. Zero comedic value. If you have to watch it, put the subtitles on and fast-forward so less time is wasted. This was bad.
