I haven't been to a movie theater for almost a year, and I assumed that I had missed a lot of good movies. I decided to watch some relatively recent movies that most people seemed to like, starting with Garden State.

I wish I had skipped this one.

I'll give you a brief summary of the movie: Guy with issues returns home after a long time away. Guy meets girl with issues. Guy and girl like each other. Girl has a strange life. Guy realizes over some painfully-long sequences that he has a strange life too. Guy's friends and girl's family make some appearances but don't actually accomplish anything even remotely related to plot or character development. The ending is almost sad, but then becomes happy.

Wow. How original.

If you watch Garden State, you won't get any more out of it than that. I wish I had saved my time and simply read that summary.

There is absolutely nothing else of any particular value in the movie. The events progress slowly, most sequences are completely unnecessary, and the characters are completely flat and predictable. You can predict the entire movie after the first 15 minutes.

Plot

Unoriginal and predictable. You've already seen this movie many times.

Style

Scenes take forever to accomplish their goals. Many scenes don't have goals. Most of the movie is irrelevant. Cinematography tries too hard to be fancy and artistic to make the brief plot longer.

Characters

Guy with issues meets girl with issues. Loser friends. Flat and predictable.

Overall

This movie is almost as bad as New Jersey itself. Don't waste your time.