“
After nine years of estrangement from his family, Andrew Largeman (Zach
Braff) – known as Large – has returned to
Large arrives and starts running into old high school buddies:
the gravediggers working on his mother’s grave, a hardware salesman
moonlighting in a pyramid scheme, and, in a marvelous scene, the fledgling cop
who stops Large for speeding. Then
there’s the pal who has recently patented noiseless Velcro.
This fellow has bought a castle with his new fortune and has no idea what
to do either with his empty home or with his life.
You’ll remember these sights: the
golf cart in the empty castle, the fast-food knight clanking in his armor,
Sam’s South African brother who is studying Criminal Justice at
This movie is a feast of unconnected thoughts, encounters, and sights -
each leading randomly to the next. The
characters float through the days unencumbered by plans or obligations. Large
goes to a party with the gravedigger, keeps a doctor’s appointment where he
meets Sam (Natalie Portman), and visits the castle of the Velcro tycoon. Sam brings Large home where he is immediately knocked over by
enormous, badly behaved dogs (we just don’t have time to train them, Sam’s
mother says.)
We are now in a small tract house where everything is an offense to the
eye. Outside, a dirty swimming tube
floats in the plastic cover of the above-ground pool along with rotting leaves
and rainwater. Sam and Large make
their way past this to a pet graveyard where they bury the hamster who
couldn’t master his wheel. For
Sam and her mother, all this is normal. They
are equally flaky and full of love.
The wistful Sam simply sprinkles on Large all the unexpected small treats
of life he has never known. As
these endearing oddballs walk through life one extremely funny step at a time,
we realize every one of them is propelled by kindness - a bunch of
Zach Braff’s playful mind is full of fanciful detail.
Natalie Portman is a magical flake; each supporting actor is solidly on
target, and I haven’t had so much fun since “Black Cat, White Cat”
delivered the sight of a man on a tugboat watering the flowers in his window box
as he floated past the city of
Copyright (c) Illusion