Aidan Bloom (Zach Braff) is a struggling actor. His wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) is tired working as the bread winner. His father Gabe (Mandy Patinkin) is paying for his kids' private school tuition. However Gabe's cancer has returned and he won't be able to pay for school anymore. His kids have to be to homeschooled. Noah (Josh Gad) is his unemployed father-hating trailer-living brother. Noah falls for his neighbor Janine (Ashley Greene) who makes costumes for Comic-con and hates him. Daughter Grace (Joey King) is falling for the dreamy Jesse.

I really like Zach Braff's 'Garden State'. However there are little things in this movie that bugged me. The family doesn't seem natural at first. It feels cobbled together like a sitcom family. I don't see Kate Hudson as the mother and I certainly don't see her working in a cubicle. Again, her workplace comedy seems too much like a sitcom. It feels a little fake. The kids are cute but again, I don't believe Zach Braff is their dad. The family does grow on me over time and eventually there are some good moments.

There are some slapstick that really bug me for some reason. The rabbi on a segway in the hospital is a bit too much. It's too stupid and seems out of place. I do appreciate Zach trying to add some spirituality into this movie. This has a sweet heartfelt nature but not as much charm as his first effort.

While this is a Zach Braff movie, it's Josh Gad who has a lot of scene-stealer scenes. Not sure if you could (or should) compare him to early Jack Black, but if you do that analogy/comparison on the degree of how funny they are, I guess you can. Although Gad seems a bit more low key of course (and not only in this, but other movies he did).

Zach is doing his usual thing, which isn't bad, but might feel a bit like the same to viewers. And still the movie is able to get you towards the end, if you have a soft spot for drama. Like I said, I credit Gad mostly for that, but the kid actors are not bad either. This drama is not as good as some others I watched in 2014, but it's more than decent enough

I understand that it's hard to get any acclaim trying to swim against the IMDb currents, and anyone who says this movie sucks is instantly named a moron and an utterly incompetent person who knows nothing about the cinema. Also, people have hard time understanding what moves other people to express their discontent about a movie and not just shut the f**k up. The point is, if those who found the movie to be well below par don't say anything then the people who come here for some insight on what the movie might be would only see one side of the story. So here i am, trying to actually elaborate the reasons of the 4/10 rating.

Anyway, this movie starts and ends with some not-so-deep message, like "When we were little, we pretended that we were the heroes, ones who save the day. But what if we raised the bar a bit too high? What if we are the regular people, ones who get saved?". Don't know what sort of epiphany the screenwriters smoked to use this as a portion of wisdom fundamental for the movie and around which the rest revolves, but they were spot-on about one thing. This movie is all about pretending.

I don't even know where to begin, so shallow this movie is. The characters, their dreams or problems - absolutely nothing i could feel for. "Oh, my dad's not gonna pay for my kids' private school, and i'm so broke because i sit on my ass and jerk off on some porn on my MacBook while pretending that i would become a super hot actor"? Is that supposed to be something people relate to? Or maybe "Omg, my cubicle coworker makes penis jokes, i have to tell everyone"? Seriously, these guys live in a goddamn California, and the main guy's so called loser brother lives in a trailer with a view a billion people would kill or even die for. The guy's dad fails to send a check for a damn private school because he got a f**king cancer - and the guy's biggest problem is that he would have to care for his dad's dog? Really? Is it me, or 5 year old kids in some less well-fed countries than US are more adult than these guys? All that people do in this movie is pretend their lives are so important and full or such dire problems, and we are expected to drown in tears watching them moan about it or clench their tiny fists in attempts to actually do something that counts?

Just because we are being shown a bunch of losers comforting each other and a soppy music is playing doesn't mean that the movie's good. The only thing that was remotely good in it is the main guy's dad character. At least he had something really valuable to lose, and he accepted it with dignity and not pitying himself.

It would be different if the movie was actually having a fun at itself and showing the characters as a bizarre freak show they are. Instead, we are having some self-indulgent life lessons from those who obviously know sh*t about life. Apparently, that's exactly how the director/writer/main actor Zach Braff wants to position himself. Just like his character, who by some weird twist of fate landed a teacher's job at some acting school, while having a dandruff commercial as an apex of his own acting career. Keep it going, pal, i'm sure we have a lot to learn from you.