Garden State Revisited

After viewing "Garden State" a second time, I have realized that the message of the film is different than I originally thought. I used to think it was essentially an existential film, telling viewers that we only have one life, so make it good. But I now understand that while that is a theme, it is a tangent from the core message, an extension reaching from the root. The root of the film says that love is what makes life worthwhile and significance.

The film delves into death and is a well made movie with complex characters with problems. I like the crane shot at the funeral that shows all the people in rows from high above, then comes down and you can see the headstones in the same row composition, a subtle reminder that we are all going to die eventually. I like how Natalie Portman plays Sam with the subtle hints that she is a girl who has been hurt before and now she's jaded: "oh my god, you're like so freaked out right now." She is an individual who is assertive and unique, someone who used to be naive enough to let anyone love her but is now a girl who reveals her heart, then quickly corrects the mistake by separating herself from others with lies. She lies so she can feel like she has control over her life. I like Zach Braff's Andrew Largeman, an emotionless, numb guy who has experienced trauma and has been medicated enough that he can't feel anything.

The film shows people attempting to find value, but never getting it. Characters like Largman's cop friend and the inventor of the silent Velcro are people who have (more or less) gained worldly success. They have importance and wealth, respectively. And yet, the cop only became a cop because there was nothing else to do. He grew up, stopped taking drugs, but his life is still average. The Velcro guy has all the money he could ever want (and used it to buy a ridiculous mansion that feeds into his Medieval Time obsession), but he's not taking advantage of it. It doesn't make him happy.

The man at the bottom of the abyss has the wisdom for Largeman. He talks about having the important job of "guardian of the infinite abyss," but then he says that that's just ego stuff. What really matters, he says, what really makes life worth-while, is being with his wife and child. That makes everything meaningful.

Maybe that's why Largeman's mom wanted to die, because the whole family was so distant from each other that none of them ever experienced that love that makes life livable.

And so when Largeman tells his dad that all he has is his life, that that's it, he's not saying that he should go for every hedonistic experience, to squeeze every drop of pleasure out of life. He has found that trying to live a meaningful life void of love is impossible. Love is real.

After the second viewing, I realized that the film is not a carpe diem film, but rather a memento mori film. This made me feel good about liking it.