If a movie must be quirky, let it be like this. The jokes were of the highest quality, even if they were few and far between, making one laugh out loud quite unexpectedly. The story was sweetly sentimental but made with such affection that one cannot but help be taken in by the characters, especially the vivacious and slightly-nuts Sam (Natalie Portman). It’s a film that one might describe as peculiar, but never crossing the line into bizarre. The emotional scenes are played with amazing restraint. The music is noteworthy and the crew seems to have been mighty competent.
This was writer-director-actor Zach Braff (from TV’s Scrubs) first feature and it is definitely an auspicious debut. What amazes me about indie cinema these days is the production values. Everything is tight as a drum, the attention to detail is striking and the end result is pure quality. Quite unlike our veteran film makers like Sudhir Mishra who won’t even take the trouble to stick a guy’s beard on properly.

Ah well.