Garden State
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Garden State |
| Original title | Garden State |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Zach Braff |
| script | Zach Braff |
| production |
Gary Gilbert , Dan Halsted , Danny DeVito , Pamela Abdy |
| music | Chad Fischer |
| camera | Lawrence Sher |
| cut | Myron I. Kerstein |
| occupation | |
| |
Garden State is a feature film from the year 2004 . It started in Germany and Austria on May 26, 2005 . It is the debut directing and screenwriting of Scrubs actor Zach Braff , who also stars in the film.
The title Garden State (in German "Gartenstaat") is the nickname of the US state of New Jersey , which is the location of the film.
action
At the beginning of the film, the lethargic actor and waiter Andrew Largeman is seen waking up from a bizarre dream when his phone rings. The call is from Andrew's father in New Jersey , who tells Andrew that his paraplegic mother has died. Andrew sets off to attend his mother's funeral. At the funeral he meets two old friends, Mark and Dave, who work as gravedigger. The two invite Andrew to a party. He drives his old motorcycle with a sidecar to the party in the evening and meets old friends from high school who all party and consume drugs.
The morning after the party, Andrew drives to the local hospital for a recent headache exam. In the waiting room he meets Sam. She knows Andrew from a TV movie, but the two can only talk briefly because Andrew is called to the neurologist , a colleague of his father's. Andrew has his from his father, a psychiatrist , prescribed extensive psychiatric left in Los Angeles because he wants to try to live without it and declines the offer of a renewed prescription. As it turns out later, the father blames Andrew for the accident that led to his mother's paralysis.
In front of the clinic, Andrew meets Sam again, who previously pretended to be picked up by her boyfriend. When she sees Andrew, she tells him that she would not be picked up after all, so he offers to drive her home. However, she refuses to use the sidecar. On the way, Sam admits that she has no boyfriend, but that she is a compulsive liar.
After they get to Sam, she asks Andrew into the house and Andrew gets to know Sam's family. The two are talking in their room. Sam says that she sometimes does weird things in her room to make something unique, because nobody does that kind of thing in her room. Shortly afterwards, when they bury Sam's late hamster in the garden, Sam learns of the death of Andrew's mother.
In the evening, Andrew is confronted by his father that he would avoid him. Andrew claims he just hasn't had time yet, but agrees to have a chat with his father before leaving town. Andrew leaves home to go to Sam's house. There he learns that she has epilepsy , which Sam is very uncomfortable with. To distract themselves from the subject, Andrew and Sam drive to a bar, where they have the opportunity to continue their friendship until they are interrupted by Mark, Jesse and Dave. They drive to Jesse's villa together, and you can see her and the other guests in the swimming pool. It turns out that Andrew is the only one unable to swim. Sam stays with Andrew at the shallow end of the pool and they ponder where a "home" could be for them.
Later, Sam, Andrew, Jesse and Mark sit by an open fireplace and talk. The conversation develops as Andrew makes a confession to his friends: He was sent to boarding school in his youth after causing his mother's accident. Frustrated that he couldn't make her happier, he pushed her. His mother stumbled over the open dishwasher because the lock was broken. She bumped her neck on the kitchen table and was paralyzed from the waist down. When Mark and Jesse leave the room a little later, accompanied by a girl, Andrew admits to Sam how much he likes them.
The next morning, Mark comes to Andrew to organize a parting present. However, he needs Andrew and his motorcycle for this. Since Andrew had promised Sam to spend the day with her, the three of them drive. The trio drives to a hardware store where Mark uses a trick to trick him into making money and where an unpopular former classmate tries to convince the three of a business partnership. Then they go to a shabby hotel, where "special customers" can look into the guests' rooms from an interior hallway to watch hotel guests having sex.
Your trip ends at a quarry in Newark . At the edge of a seemingly endless abyss, they see a houseboat. When they go there, heavy rain sets in. The residents of the houseboat are a married couple who are employed to observe the crevice. They are also dealers in antique jewelry. Mark also receives a small piece of jewelry here - the reason why he undertook the day-long odyssey in the first place. When the three of them leave the houseboat, the sky clears, and Andrew spontaneously climbs onto an old excavator that is standing next to the houseboat to scream loudly into the abyss. Sam and Mark follow him, and so all three scream together until Sam and Andrew kiss each other around the neck.
When they reach Mark's house, he hands the jewel to Andrew. It turns out that it was Andrew's mother's favorite piece of jewelry that Mark stole from the grave. The following night Sam and Andrew spend together at Andrew's parents' house, where Andrew finally has a clarifying conversation with his father.
The next morning, Sam and Andrew say goodbye at the airport as Andrew wants to return to Los Angeles to get his life under control. On board the plane, however, Andrew changes his mind and returns to the crying Sam to tell her that he doesn't want to waste his life and does not want to go without her.
background
script
Zach Braff drafted the first parts of the script while in college. Then in 2000 he wrote it down within three months. The shooting took place in 2003.
The film is in parts autobiographical. Braff grew up in New Jersey and was not particularly successful in Hollywood at first. The school that Largeman attended ("Columbia High") is Braff's former school, which can even be seen briefly in the film. Both Braff's mother and stepfather are psychologists. Braff says that 80% of the film is based on real events, even if he did not experience all of them himself.
The roles of Sam ( Natalie Portman ), Mark ( Peter Sarsgaard ) and Andrew's father ( Ian Holm ) are his ideal cast , according to Braff. He says he sent them the scripts believing they wouldn’t agree anyway.
reception
The film was in the official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2004 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Debut Film, but could not win it. At that film festival the film was sold to Miramax Films and Fox Searchlight Pictures .
After the film only showed four cinemas in New York , three cinemas in Los Angeles and Braff's home theater in New Jersey , it was later shown in other selected cities. It was only after it became a success that it was shown across the United States and exported abroad. In Germany the film had a total of 155,364 visitors.
The film also won numerous awards at smaller festivals in the USA and an award at the Stockholm International Film Festival .
At Rotten Tomatoes , the film gets under the "Top Critics" a positive rating of 86%.
Anke Sterneborg describes the “amazing film debut” in Focus as something that “is both a study of reality and an enraptured fairy tale, a subversive coming home comedy and a touching romance”, which creates a “magical dreamlike tension”. She compares the events and encounters lined up by the director, screenwriter and main actor Braff, which differ from a classic plot dramaturgy, with “shimmering colored pearls”. She also praises the “great actor ensemble”, which ensures “that the characters do not get lost in the abundance of visual ideas”.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was compiled by Braff and includes pieces by Colin Hay , The Shins , Coldplay , Nick Drake , Simon and Garfunkel , Zero 7 and Frou Frou . The latter had a belated sales success with their contribution Let go from their previously little-noticed album Details . The soundtrack was named best compilation at the Grammys Awards . In the film, the song "Three times a lady" by Lionel Richie is also sung at the funeral of Jackie Hoffman (Aunt Sylvia).
Track list
- Don't Panic - Coldplay
- Caring Is Creepy - The Shins
- In The Waiting Line - Zero 7
- New Slang - The Shins
- I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You - Colin Hay
- Blue Eyes - Cary Brothers
- Fair - Remy Zero
- One Of These Things First - Nick Drake
- Lebanese Blonde - Thievery Corporation
- The Only Living Boy In New York - Simon & Garfunkel
- Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
- Let Go - Frou Frou
- Winding Road - Bonnie Somerville
criticism
“A comedy full of bizarre things, in the course of which the protagonist explores his past and is confronted with a number of strange guys. The original debut film tells its story at a leisurely pace that is appropriate to the subject. "
"A lovingly bizarre cinema dream where you rub your eyes in amazement and hope that it will never end."
Web links
- Garden State in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Garden State atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Column The Shooting Star ( Memento from February 16, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) on the film Garden State (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Certificate of Release to Garden State . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2005 (PDF; test number: 101 922 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Garden State . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ "Review in Focus"
- ^ Garden State. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 29, 2017 .
- ↑ Trailer for Garden State ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( WMV ; 3.3 MB)
