Wish I Was Here
walks a really fine line of being likeable and hate-able, often shifting back
and forth between the two from scene to scene.
As a follow-up to Zach Braff’s Garden
State, it’s fairly underwhelming, partially because of tonal shifts that
range from insightful to saccharinely pandering, but mostly because the film
seems so much like Braff’s attempts to muddle through his own emotional malaise
that it loses the relatability that caused Garden
State to garner such a following.
That said, though, I think that when you remove this film from the
greater context of Braff’s less-than-noteworthy post-Scrubs career, it largely works on its own terms, even if it wasn’t
the second coming that Braff was promising everyone in his crowd-funding
pitches.
Aiden Bloom (played by Braff) is a struggling actor, trying
to raise two kids with his wife, who supports them by working a soulless job
where she is subject to sexual harassment and an unsympathetic boss. When Aiden’s father announces that he’s dying
of cancer, in order to pay for treatment the family has to pull the two kids
out of their private Jewish school, and Aiden takes up the task of (rather
ineffectually) trying to homeschool the kids.
What follows isn’t so much a storied narrative as it is a series of
scenes that culminate in Aiden’s discovery of adult responsibility, gradually
earning respect in the eyes of his father while finding purpose in the simple
act of raising his kids.
Now this seems like a really good follow-up premise to Garden State, precisely because it takes
the resonant themes of that work and translates them to the 30-something
settled, married lifestyle that Gen-Xers are gradually falling into. All that angst that defined their young
adulthood needs translation into the working class struggles of middle class
America, and this film does a decent job of characterizing that generational
struggle. This is a film about meeting
the standards of excellence our parents set for us while still using our own
generational identity to pass on valuable lessons to our children. That’s a bold message to try and convey, and
while I find the attempt to be admirable, the conveyance is where the film
starts to break down a bit.
It ultimately comes down to Zach Braff’s artistic style, and
the backlash of his Gen-X sensibilities is that he ultimately feels derivative
and self-important. His tendency is to
take his message and bash us over the head with it through montages set to yester-decade’s
indie rock and bizarre dream sequences in which he runs around in a
spacesuit. In trying to capture the
plight that his generation’s angst has created, he also captured that
generation’s more obnoxious qualities, like the penchant for sitcom-spun
sentimentality and non-sequitur stabs at pop culture being mistaken for
intelligent social commentary. There is
a scene in which Aiden calls his brother to inform him that their father is
about to die. That phone call takes
place while the brother is wearing a spacesuit costume and having sex with a
woman in a fursuit. It’s such a weirdly
discordant moment that it’s hard to take the dramatic nature of the phone call
seriously, even though the film clearly wants you to be both amused by the
absurdity and heartbroken at the imminent death in the family. This is just a notable example of how this
film struggles with its identity.
And yet, I’m willing to still give this film a marginal
recommendation. I found enough to enjoy
in its story and characters that I’m willing to give a pass to the stylistic
choices of a pretentious Zach Braff. If
you’re looking for a thesis statement on the current Gen-X condition, it may
unintentionally show more than it intends to, but Wish I Was Here is a decent enough film to warrant a viewing.
Was Garden State a
part of your college DVD collection? Let
me know in the comments below.
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