Garden State

Andrew "Large" Largeman is returning home to New Jersey for the first time in nine years to attend his mother's funeral. A struggling actor in Los Angeles, he's been living under clouds of medication prescribed by his psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). After drifting through the funeral with the same emotional numbness he's felt for years, he reconnects with old friends Mark (Peter Sarsgaard), a gravedigger, and Albert (Denis O'Hare), a millionaire who invented noiseless Velcro. In a doctor's office, he meets ebullient Sam (Natalie Portman), an epileptic whose lust for life inspires Andrew to feel things that his medication long denied him. Over four days, he develops feelings for Sam he didn't know he was capable of, and faces up to the resentment his father holds toward him about an accident that happened long ago. Written, directed and starring Scrubs star, Zach Braff, Garden State is his debut film. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.