Garden State is a 2004 American romantic comedy drama film, written and directed by Zach Braff, and starring him, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm.

Later that night, Andrew goes to the party where he meets up with Mark, Dave, and Jesse, an old friend who has just earned a fortune after creating silent Velcro.

Andrew then returns to Sam's house, and the two spend the rest of the day together, joining his friends later at Jesse's mansion.

Albert explains that living there and exploring the quarry is "doing something that's completely unique, that's never been done before," mirroring an earlier speech by Sam.

Andrew is inspired by the conversation, and outside in the rain, he climbs atop a derelict crane and screams into the quarry, joined by Sam and Mark.

Andrew eventually talks with his father, and states that he was not to blame for his mother's accident and that he will live the rest of his life without medication.

[4] The title alludes both to the nickname for New Jersey, and lines from Andrew Marvell's poem "The Garden" ("Such was that happy garden-state/While man there walked without a mate").

Commenting on the selections, he said that "Essentially, I made a mix CD with all of the music that I felt was scoring my life at the time I was writing the screenplay.

He described that "When I wrote Garden State, I was completely depressed, waiting tables and lonesome as I've ever been in my life.

The script was a way for me to articulate what I was feeling; alone, isolated, 'a dime a dozen' and homesick for a place that didn't even exist.

It became only the fourth non-documentary feature to top the chart that year, as calculated by per screen average, since Memorial Day weekend.

Gilula said, "Zach [Braff] had a cross-country tour, and we [organized] word of mouth screenings, where we had to turn people away.

The website's consensus reads: "Delivering a quirky spin on familiar twentysomething tropes -- with a cannily-placed soundtrack -- Garden State has enough charm to mark a winning debut for first-time director Zach Braff.

"[15] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 67 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Not since The Graduate has a movie nailed the beautiful terror of standing on the brink of adulthood with such satisfying precision.

"[17] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars and wrote: "This is not a perfect movie; it meanders and ambles and makes puzzling detours.

Club wrote: "Garden State coasts on this considerable charm until it hits a brick wall in its final segments".

[20] Natalie Portman's character Sam has been used as an example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, a term that was coined soon after Garden State was released, though in reference to another movie.

[24] In 2014, Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone referred to Garden State as the film "that helped make Hollywood safe for indie pop".