98. Garden State (2004)

Starring: Natalie Portman, Zach Braff, Peter Sarsgaard

Director: Zach Braff

Running Time: 102 mins

Garden State is an American film about a young man who returns to meet his family for his mother’s funeral, who he has not seen for nearly a decade, and while he’s in town, he meets a young woman, who is a pathological liar, with whom he falls in love.

This is definitely a very unorthodox take on modern romantic comedy films, however it was actually quite enjoyable. Initially, the film is a bit slow and boring, however it eventually gets more interesting, and finally gets quite funny.

At the beginning of the film, for the first half an hour or so, I did find it quite boring, and I was struggling to keep my attention, which drew me out of some of the fundamental story foundations that were being introduced in the early stages of the movie.

However, I found the main characters very interesting, as they were all presented as normal young men and women, however it seemed as if they all had deeply buried problems that they were hiding from society, which I found most intriguing to follow.

Overall, this gets a 7.4 for being quite an interesting and original form of a romantic comedy, however it was just a bit too slow and boring initially to quickly grab me…