This solidly written and acted relationship dramedy surprised me with its adult approach to material that has been done to death elsewhere.
Zach Braff attempts to shed the goofball charm that makes him such an appealing heartthrob to college-age girls who know him primarily for his work on the television show "Scrubs," and knuckles down to play a man on the cusp of thirty who feels panic-stricken by all the life responsibilities that turning thirty implies. Things aren't helped by the fact that his girlfriend, who he's reluctant to marry, is pregnant. A stupid decision on his part threatens their relationship, and the happy Hollywood ending at least comes with enough uncertainty and bitterness to make it believable.
This movie hasn't yet seemed to have found an audience, and I'm not surprised. Braff is at a funny place in his career. The twenty-somethings who like him because of "Scrubs" aren't mature enough to understand this movie -- a group of college girls behind me in the theatre did nothing but giggle through the whole thing and seemed disgruntled at the end that the whole movie was, in their words, "depressing." But Braff isn't yet old enough to make older audiences believe he has anything to tell them about life experience. This movie is pretty much squarely aimed at people my age -- that is, people just barely on either side of 30 -- despite the presence in the film of Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson, playing a married couple going through a crisis of their own.
This film says a lot of honest things about relationships: how both men and women are scared about committing to one another and how each gender reacts to that fear; how we look to the examples in our lives for clues on how to deal with our own messes; how 30-year-olds think they know it all because they know more than they did when they were 20, yet know barely anything compared to those who are 50 and older. It's even a rather complicated film in that no one character is entirely likable or entirely unlikable. Virtually everyone in it makes some mistake at one point or another, but as the film makes crystal clear, to point a finger at someone else's mistakes means pointing a finger at your own.
Grade: A-
Zach Braff attempts to shed the goofball charm that makes him such an appealing heartthrob to college-age girls who know him primarily for his work on the television show "Scrubs," and knuckles down to play a man on the cusp of thirty who feels panic-stricken by all the life responsibilities that turning thirty implies. Things aren't helped by the fact that his girlfriend, who he's reluctant to marry, is pregnant. A stupid decision on his part threatens their relationship, and the happy Hollywood ending at least comes with enough uncertainty and bitterness to make it believable.
This movie hasn't yet seemed to have found an audience, and I'm not surprised. Braff is at a funny place in his career. The twenty-somethings who like him because of "Scrubs" aren't mature enough to understand this movie -- a group of college girls behind me in the theatre did nothing but giggle through the whole thing and seemed disgruntled at the end that the whole movie was, in their words, "depressing." But Braff isn't yet old enough to make older audiences believe he has anything to tell them about life experience. This movie is pretty much squarely aimed at people my age -- that is, people just barely on either side of 30 -- despite the presence in the film of Blythe Danner and Tom Wilkinson, playing a married couple going through a crisis of their own.
This film says a lot of honest things about relationships: how both men and women are scared about committing to one another and how each gender reacts to that fear; how we look to the examples in our lives for clues on how to deal with our own messes; how 30-year-olds think they know it all because they know more than they did when they were 20, yet know barely anything compared to those who are 50 and older. It's even a rather complicated film in that no one character is entirely likable or entirely unlikable. Virtually everyone in it makes some mistake at one point or another, but as the film makes crystal clear, to point a finger at someone else's mistakes means pointing a finger at your own.
Grade: A-