Garden State

Conceived as a semi-autobiographical labor of love by sitcom star Zach Braff, GardenState (2004) was a modestly-budgeted independent film that, thanks to word-of-mouth and Braff’s tireless self-promotion (in particular, on his blog where fans were able to interact with him), his directorial debut became something of a minor hit as twentysomethings connected with the film and its disaffected characters in a deeply personal way. It didn’t take long for the media backlash to arrive with Slate leading the charge with a rant bluntly entitled, “Why I Hate Zach Braff,” that reeked of jealous hipster envy. I have no doubt that Braff’s film is a sincere attempt on his part to articulate how he felt at a certain point in his life on celluloid. That kind of earnestness in this cynical age leaves one wide open for all sorts of crass criticism, but for those that connect with what he is trying to say, Garden State is a special film.

Andrew “Large” Largeman (Zach Braff) is an out-of-work actor living in Los Angeles and paying the bills as a waiter at a Vietnamese restaurant. He gets a phone call from his father (Ian Holm) telling that his mother has died. He heads back home to New Jersey where he hooks up with old friends, including Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), a gravedigger whose mom (Jean Smart) and her boyfriend Tim (a pre-The Big Bang Theory Jim Parsons) can speak fluent Klingon.

Large is disaffected and emotionally removed from the rest of the world thanks to a steady diet of mood suppressing pills prescribed by his psychiatrist father. In some respects, he resembles the equally disaffected Harold in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971). Large aimlessly wanders through life with no real purpose. Even when he hooks up with Mark and his friends, Large doesn’t really connect with them. He is the outside observer who watches everything. Of course, taking Ecstasy at their party probably didn’t help, either. Generally speaking, Large is shell-shocked by life, but this begins to change when he stops taking his medication and meets Samantha (Natalie Portman), an eccentric girl who is his complete opposite. While he is detached, she’s empathetic. He doesn’t talk much and she can’t stop talking. He is passive and she is very much pro-active — the Maude to his Harold, if you will.

It is the odd, personal little touches, like the sinks in the airport bathroom that go on as Large passes by each one of them, that are quirky and establish right from the get-go that this film is going to be something different. For example, when Large goes into a doctor’s office, he notices a wall absolutely covered with diplomas and degrees. So much so that there is one hanging from the ceiling. It is this example that also demonstrates Braff’s tendency to create moments that are a little too precious, like when he inserts a shot of Large’s shirt pattern blending into the wallpaper behind him for no discernible reason except that it’s supposed to visually illustrate his fucked-up mind state or something like that. However, they are thankfully few and far between and I’m willing to chalk this up to first-time directorial inexperience and an over-enthusiastic tendency to show off a little bit. As a first-time director, Braff wears his influences on his sleeve (see The Graduate), but he isn’t simply sampling them a la Quentin Tarantino. He’s integrating them into a personal story. Braff also sneaks in references to some of his previous work with a cameo by Michael Weston who appeared with him in the little-seen indie, Getting to Know You (1999).

With Garden State, Natalie Portman temporarily escaped from Star Wars hell to capitalize on the promise she showed in films like Beautiful Girls (1996) and Where the Heart Is (2000). She is completely engaging as the neurotic and chatty Sam. She seems to be channeling Diane Keaton circa Annie Hall (1977) or a young version of Ruth Gordon’s life-affirming Maude in Harold and Maude with her performance, displaying excellent comedic timing. Portman has such a radiant presence on camera and the film really comes alive whenever she’s on-screen. With Garden State, Portman also entered the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Hall of Fame. Upon closer inspection, Sam is a rather superficial character loaded with adorable, quirky affectations, but whose sole purpose is to help Large get out of existential funk and embrace life. That being said, Portman does her job really well. For all of Sam’s colorful affectations (she’s an epileptic compulsive liar), Portman is able to convey a vulnerability that is endearing.

What really saves Garden State from being too precious is the presence of Peter Sarsgaard who delivers another wonderfully low-key performance as Large’s laidback friend Mark. He makes his character’s quirks (like Mark’s investment in Desert Storm trading cards that he plans to sell one day for a lot of money) believable and grounds the film with his realistic portrayal of a guy stuck in a small-town, but who is self-aware of this fact and made peace with it. Sarsgaard brings an effortless charisma that is always interesting to watch. One moment, Mark is all easy going and then on a dime he insults his mother’s boyfriend in a casually cruel way. Mark shows these little glimpses of self-awareness throughout the film and they culminate in a fantastic throwaway line near the end of the movie that speaks volumes about his character.

Zach Braff, known mostly for his work on the goofy sitcom, Scrubs, shows his versatility and ambitious talents with Garden State (he also wrote it). Despite wearing many hats as it were, he still manages to deliver a layered performance that is thoughtful and heartfelt with a definite arc that reaches a satisfying conclusion by film’s end. Let’s face it; your enjoyment of this film will largely depend on your tolerance of Braff. He tones down his sitcom shtick to play a very different character. Large is internalized and emotionally numb from his medication that has him sleepwalking his way through life. Braff has excellent chemistry with Portman and together they make a believable couple, each with their own unique ailments, drawn to one another because they are both adrift in life.

While working as a waiter at the upscale restaurant Le Colonial in Beverly Hills and trying to make it as an actor, Zach Braff was depressed because his career had stalled. He was on the verge of moving back to New Jersey and wrote the screenplay for Garden State in 2000. For years, he had kept detailed notebooks consisting of stories he overheard from friends, personal experiences and local newspaper clippings. When it came to write the script, he integrated many of them into it. The film was originally called Large’s Ark because Braff always liked the story of Noah’s Ark and the notion of rescuing things that you really like and starting over, which he envisioned the film’s protagonist doing. He ended up changing the title to the more accessible Garden State when he realized that no one would get the original title’s meaning.

Initially, he couldn’t find anyone interesting in backing the project because the script didn’t conform to the traditional three-act structure. Braff finally got Jersey Films interested and from there he was able to go after the actors he wanted. He showed them the short films he had made in order to prove that he knew what he was doing. After meeting with the actors one-on-one they all agreed to do it. For the role of Sam, Braff had always wanted to cast someone like Natalie Portman and he finally wrote her a letter. She read it, they met for lunch and she agreed to do it. To break the ice, Braff and Peter Sarsgaard came to Portman’s university where they hung out and bonded. Portman remembers, “That’s a great way to start out because it breaks down all barriers and we kept that sort of mood on set.” To prepare for the film, Braff had her watch Harold and Maude and told her that he wanted Sam to be “a 21-year-old Ruth Gordon.”

Even with the cast in place, Braff found it hard to get financing because Garden State was a character-driven film and he was inexperienced director. All of the studios turned him down. When giving potential financiers the script, Braff also included a CD of music, populated by the likes of The Shins, Coldplay and Nick Drake that he envisioned as its soundtrack. When it came time to actually get permission to use this music, he found that each band wanted a lot of money. However, he wrote impassioned letters and approached each one with the scene where their music would be used. This technique paid off and Braff got them all to reduce their fees. Finally, Gary Gilbert, an independent financier who had made a fortune in the home-mortgage market, stepped up and agreed to provide the film’s budget, but only if Braff could get it down to $2.5 million. He was able to do this and ended up shooting Garden State around northern New Jersey over 25 days during the summer of 2003. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival where Braff sold Garden State to Fox Searchlight and Miramax for a $5 million distribution deal.

Garden State received mostly positive reviews from mainstream critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and wrote, “This is not a perfect movie; it meanders and ambles and makes puzzling detours. But it’s smart and unconventional, with a good eye for the perfect detail.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas wrote, “Once again Portman is a beguiling charmer, and the multifaceted Sarsgaard very nearly steals the movie. Garden State's lack of pretense makes it all the more rewarding.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Claudia Puig wrote, “Like The Graduate, Garden State is by turns knowing and innocent, humorous and humanistic.” In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, “The happy ending is somewhat conventional in comparison to all the unusual experiences that have preceded it. Still, there’s no way any viewer could fail to be depressed if Andrew and Sam didn’t make it as a for-keeps couple.”

The Washington Post’s Desson Thomson called the film, “an edgy quasi-comedy, it's very funny in places, touching in others. There is a little unevenness. But for a directorial debut, it's amazingly assured.” However, in his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “But a scrupulous avoidance of any solemnity makes Garden State a bit too light for its own good. Its method of skipping from one incident to another feels scatterbrained, and promising characters are left behind in the rush.”

Garden State was initially given a limited release, but word-of-mouth, thanks in large part to Braff blogging anecdotes of making the film and interacting with people who left comments, helped expand its release. Fans traveled long distances for a chance to see it in a theater while many saw it more than once – a very unusual phenomenon in this day and age of short attention spans and expensive ticket prices. The people who loved the film really loved it and those who hated it, really hated it. Case in point: an article that surfaced on Slate two years after the film was released that not only attacked it, but Braff as well, calling him, “Hollywood’s ambassador to the nation’s cool kids—the guy who interprets youth culture for film execs and then repackages it for popular consumption.” The article instantly dates itself with sneering references to Braff’s popularity on MySpace and Garden State resembling an “overlong iPod ad with less adventuresome music choices.” The only thing that is useful about this “think piece” is that it provides a pop cultural snapshot of the Braff backlash that had reached its zenith.

Garden State is a film bursting with ideas, keen observations on life and memorable images, like when Large wakes up after a night of taking Ecstasy to see Tim in the next room getting milk for some cereal in a full-suit of knight’s armor, that make most other films look inert by comparison. The film takes us to unexpected places, like a family that lives in a boat located deep within a cavernous quarry mired in litigation. With Garden State, Braff tapped into a generation raised on the Internet and iPods and whose recreational drug of choice are prescription pills. He struck a chord with fellow twentysomethings who saw things in the film that they could relate to, that spoke to them on a personal level, which is rare for any film to be able to do, much less one made by a first-time director. Unfortunately, Braff has been unable to direct another film with several projects announced, but nothing made so far. His film career stalled after Garden State with a couple of romantic comedies that were poorly received. Hopefully, he’ll get another shot to make another personal film.

SOURCES

Blackwelder, Rob. “Braff in the Saddle.” SPLICEDwire. July 1, 2004.

Bunn, Austin. “Melancholy Baby.” New York magazine.

Hiatt, Brian. “Five Reasons Garden State Will Be A Sleeper Hit.” Entertainment Weekly. July 27, 2004.

Howard, Caroline. “Zach Braff.” People. July 28, 2004.

Levin, Josh. “Why I Hate Zach Braff.” Slate. September 22, 2006.

Lite, Jordan. “Garden Club.” New York Daily News. August 25, 2004.

“Q&A with Natalie Portman.” Phase 9.

“Q&A with Zach Braff.” Phase 9.

Stein, Joel. “Zach Braff Has A Big Laugh.” Time. July 18, 2004.

Shattered Glass

*NOTE* This post originally appeared at Film for the Soul as part of their Counting Down the Zeroes project.

For awhile The New Republic magazine had the reputation of being part of an elite class of periodical with an impeachable reputation. It boasted being the in-flight magazine of Air Force One. For a short time, its most popular contributor was Stephen Glass, a young, up-and-coming writer who wrote dynamic articles and was being courted by other well-known periodicals like George and Rolling Stone. However, an online publication discovered that one of his articles was a complete fabrication which forced The New Republic to do its own in-house investigation. When all was said and done, Glass fabricated either completely or partially 27 of the 41 pieces he wrote for the magazine. Screenwriter Billy Ray decided that Glass’ meteoric rise and fall would be the subject of his directorial debut and the result is Shattered Glass (2003), a fascinating look at contemporary journalistic attitudes and practices.

Early on in the film, Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) sees himself as some sort of star in competition with other staff members, like in a scene where he and Chuck Lane (Peter Sarsgaard) compare articles that they are working on. Glass initially describes his as “pretty standard stuff”: young Republicans at a conference, but then elaborates a little – these guys indulge in all sorts of felonies in their hotel rooms. When Lane compliments him, Glass returns the favor in a slightly smug, condescending way. At staff meetings, he cleverly works the room with entertaining stories of articles he’s working on. A typical pitch is all build up and hyperbole and then he ends by saying that he probably won’t finish it or that it’s “silly.” Meanwhile, Lane awkwardly has to follow Glass’ performance and comes off as apprehensive but you can tell that he’s a smart, solid writer.

The cracks in Glass’ facade first appear in an article entitled, “Hack Heaven,” about a computer hacker convention, which sends up red flags for the first time. Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), a writer from Forbes Digital does some digging, like simple searches on the Internet, and finds that Glass’ article is riddled with mistakes and information that appears to be fabricated. Adam and his fellow writers at Forbes do more digging and realize that they’ve latched onto an incredible story: elitist magazine The New Republic has published an article by its star writer that is completely untrue. When he finds out, Lane, now editor of the magazine, decides to do some of his own legwork and begins to suspect that something isn’t right with Glass’ article.

It’s the subtle, yet weaselly way Glass ingratiates himself with the office secretary or plays the role of the vulnerable writer who lacks confidence to two fellow staff members (Chloe Sevigny and Melanie Lynskey) that is so insidious. As portrayed by Hayden Christensen, Glass has the uncanny ability to play to people’s sympathies. He also has a tendency to throw out dorky lines, like when he asks a colleague, “If I were to throw a party where all we did was play Monopoly, would you guys come?” Some of his female co-workers find him endearing in his nerdiness. He’s evasive, like when fellow writers catch hints that he’s writing for other magazines and he shrugs it off as if he isn’t really interested. Glass always seems to be on the defensive, especially when his lies are exposed, with his favorite retort, “are you mad at me?” Christensen does a good job portraying Glass, especially once his articles get criticized and the actor accurately conveys a clammy-handed nervousness as the man’s facade begins to crumble. The actor easily turns in his best performance, playing a duplicitous figure that constantly plays the victim but is a liar of the tallest order and masterful manipulator. Christensen tends to be a blank actor, a reactive blank slate in the tradition of Keanu Reeves. Few filmmakers have found a way to use Christensen’s limited range but his blankness is actually an asset in Shattered Glass.

As depicted in the film, Chuck Lane lacks the person skills that someone like previous New Republic editor Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria), who stuck up for his writers and fostered loyalty among them as a result. There is palpable tension in the scene where Lane takes over as editor of the magazine but Ray doesn’t overdo it with melodramatic music. Peter Sarsgaard received the lion’s share of critical praise for delivering a masterfully understated performance. He doesn’t deliver any blustery, histrionic speeches and instead keeps things grounded in realism by applying restraint whenever possible. Sarsgaard doesn’t try to make his character inherently sympathetic. In fact, Lane comes off as a bit distant and humorless but he has an integrity that is admirable. Sarsgaard is an actor capable of subtle nuances that have resulted in low-key but brilliant turns in films as diverse as Garden State (2004) and Jarhead (2005). There’s a great shot in Shattered Glass of Sarsgaard’s face reacting to Glass’ fumbling attempts to provide sources for his story that shows the mounting anger and frustration barely being contained under his calm facade as he realizes that Glass is full of crap and that this could mean big trouble for the magazine.

Producer Craig Baumgarten, working with HBO executive Gaye Hirsch, optioned the September 1998 Vanity Fair article about Glass by H.G. Bissinger for an HBO original movie. They hired screenwriter Billy Ray to adapt the article into a screenplay in 1999 based on a script he had written for the TNT film Legalese. He used the Bissinger article as a starting point and it gave him a line of dialogue on which to hook the entire character of Glass, which was, “are you mad at me?” According to Ray, “you can build an entire character around that notion, and we did.” However, a sudden change in the corporate climate put the project into turnaround. Ray stuck with it because he knew Bissinger and had previously adapted his article entitled, “Friday Night Lights.” The project collected dust for two years until Cruise/Wagner Productions bought Ray’s script from HBO and took it to Lions Gate. Ray asked the studio if he could direct and amazingly they agreed.

Ray grew up with legendary reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as his heroes and went to journalism school for a year. It was his love for journalism that influenced his decision to direct Shattered Glass. In preparation for the film, Ray interviewed and re-interviewed key figures for any relevant detail. He signed some of them as paid consultants and gave several approval over the screenplay. Lions Gate lawyers asked Ray to give them an annotated script where he had to footnote every line of dialogue and every assertion and back them up with corresponding notes. The challenge for Ray was to make the subject matter watchable because according to the filmmaker, “watching people write is deadly dull ... in a film like this, dialogue is what a character is willing to reveal about himself, and the camera is there to capture everything else.” The breakthrough for him came when he realized that the film’s real protagonist was not Glass but Lane. According to Ray, “as fascinating as Stephen Glass is by the end of the movie people would want to kill themselves – you just can’t follow him all the way.”

Early on, Ray spent a considerable amount of time trying to earn the trust of the people who had worked with Glass and get them to understand that he was going to be objective with the subject matter. Upset with how he was portrayed in the Vanity Fair article, Michael Kelly refused to look at Ray’s script for two years. In fact, he threatened to sue when first contacted but when he finally read the script, he gave it his approval. Ray’s breakthrough on the project came when he convinced Lane and Kelly to cooperate. Ray also attempted to contact Glass through his lawyers for his input but did not receive a response.

The night before principal photography began in Montreal, Ray screened All the President’s Men (1976) for the cast and crew in order to give them an idea of what he was shooting for. He shot both halves of the film differently – in the first half, he used hand-held cameras whenever they were in The New Republic offices, but when the Forbes editors begin to question Glass, the camerawork is more stable. Ray’s original edit was a more straightforward account of the events but while editing the film he realized that it wasn’t good enough. He raised additional funds to shoot the high school scenes that bookend the film. These consist of a fantasy world perpetuated by Glass addressing a class of students at his old high school. Clippings of his articles appear on a wall. His former teacher claims that she was his “journalistic muse.” The students hang on his every word. In addition, Ray shows us glimpses of the elaborate fantasies Glass fabricated in his articles. These scenes demonstrate how well Glass was able to delude himself and create a fantasy world where he is loved and admired by others.

Shattered Glass received extremely positive reviews from critics. The New York Times’ A.O. Scott called the film "a serious, well-observed examination of the practice of journalism." He added, "A more showily ambitious film might have tried to delve into Glass's personal history in search of an explanation for his behavior, or to draw provocative connections between that behavior and the cultural and political climate of the times. Such a movie would also have been conventional, facile and ultimately false. Mr. Ray knows better than to sensationalize a story about the dangers of sensationalism.” Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and felt the film was well-cast and "deserves comparison with All the President’s Men among movies about journalism." Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and praised Hayden Christensen's performance: "Right from the start, Hayden Christensen is a revelation, and not just because his performance, all mind games and subliminal facial tics, transcends the rinky-dink teen heroics of the Star Wars universe. It's because he lets us see that it's Glass himself who's playacting the role of an elite young Washington journalist.” Premiere magazine's Glenn Kenny wrote, "it’s Peter Sarsgaard, as the editor who serves Glass his just deserts, who walks away with the picture, metamorphosing his character’s stiffness into a moral indignation that’s jolting and, finally, invigorating.”

In his review for the Washington Post, Stephen Hunter wrote, "I particularly like the way Ray made no excuses for Glass and makes us see how shallow and cynical were his persistent cries of victimization. Ray makes us believe that we shouldn't care for Glass any more than he cared for his colleagues, his friendships or his profession. Which is to say, not a bit" Glass saw the film and found the experience to be “very painful for me. It was like being on a guided tour of the moments of my life I am most ashamed of.”

Glass epitomized a kind of slick superstar journalism that is short on content, long on style, or as one New Republic writer tells another, “”These guys don’t want policy pieces anymore, they want color, they want nuance, humor.” Ray has crafted one of the best journalistic exposes that deserves to be ranked up there with All the President’s Men and The Insider (1999), but unlike those films, Shattered Glass refuses to elevate its protagonist to the level of crusading hero. Lane comes across as a normal guy doing his job who had to deal with some extraordinary circumstances. It is an incredible story: how a writer was able to snowball so many prestigious publications for so long. Glass joins a rogue’s gallery with the likes of Jayson Blair and his fictional reporting for The New York Times and Sony marketing executive Matthew Cramer’s made-up movie critic David Manning who just happened to give rave reviews to every film released by the studio.

SOURCES

Bear, Linda. “Journalist as the Bad Guy.” indieWIRE. October 28, 2003.

Bowen, Peter. “Confirm or Deny.” Filmmaker. Fall 2003.

Carr, David. “The Real Star of Stephen Glass’s Movie: A Magazine.” The New York Times. October 19, 2003.

Horgan, Richard. “Glass Shards.” FilmStew. October 22, 2003.

P., Ken. “Interview: Billy Ray.” IGN. March 24, 2004.