Clovers In The Atmosphere

garden state was lamelamelame Zach Braff is cemented in my mind as the magical realist JD on scrubs, and this movie doesn't go quite far enough to break that idea. Zach even sends us in for a little magical realism with the "infinite abyss" scene which just reinforces that it is still JD up there.


Natalie Portman is playing the same alluringly wise and perky character she has been since she was 15 in "beautiful girls." I am still a sucker for this character at a adolescent, midbrain level, but running over the same old ground rarely brings anything (except the same old fear). She did nail the accent and speech pattern of non-trashy Jersey. At least at the beginning when she talked, before the last 50 mintues in which all she does is cry and look perky.


People made a big deal out of the music in the movie. and I have to admit I like Alexi Murdoch's "Beneath an Orange Sky" in an O.C. watching kindof way. But while garden state was meant to cement the existance of indie-yuppie music as a metonym for intermediately professional, twenties, social ennui, the use of music actually serves to reject this idea. During his misery and loneliness, JD is steeped in this sub-radio milieu ("the shins will change your life") surrounded by charicatures of twentysomethings. When he finally faces the realities of himself and a healthy future (in the forehead slapping "abyss" scene) it is to the soundtrack of simon and garfunkel's "The only living boy in New York." Boomer music par excellance. Therefore, the music serves to undermine, one hopes intentionally, the premise that young people are facing unchartered waters dotted with psychotropics, malaise, and stodgy parents. and so we beat on, boats against the current, carried back ceaselessly into the past.

this movie does tug the heartstrings a bit. It is always nice to be pandered to, and I am the exact age and career stage who is mean to be affected by the movie. And to revist DFW's definition of Art vs. blockbuster, and at least it is trying to make us think about our own lives instead of forget about them. But these movie rings hollow with it's blockbuster obviousness conclusions and hollywood ending.

gotomoscow has a theory (http://gotomoscow.blogspot.com/2005/05/home-maker.html) that it is much more fun to imagine an activity that is designed for people older than you than to actually do the activity. perhaps that is where the true resonance of the movie lies, with those too young to experience it but viewing that age group of the characters as idols/rolemodels/on the horizon.

Can someone help me out? Which famous poet used to live in beached boat? Neruda? Was that a fictional character? the keeper of the abyss in the movie also lives, heinously incongruously, in a boat.