This blog post examines the genre characteristics of the film ‘Garden State,’ which simultaneously captures romance and personal growth, and explores the protagonist’s inner transformation.

 

Is ‘Garden State’ a Romantic Comedy or a Coming-of-Age Film?

The American indie film ‘Garden State’ combines elements of romantic comedy and coming-of-age cinema, depicting protagonist Andrew’s journey to overcome inner wounds and grow. This film focuses on two unique characters meeting, healing their wounds through love, and emphasizing the protagonist’s growth by prioritizing personal narratives over conventional genre tropes.
These days, few films can be neatly defined by a single genre. Even when reading magazine or online reviews for information, multiple genres are often listed. This trend might be inevitable. Genres established in the 1920s and 30s featured familiar, one-dimensional characters navigating predictable stories within recognizable settings. However, modern audiences seem to desire multidimensional characters over the simple ones of the past, and anticipate genre variations rather than traditional characteristics.
The film I recently watched is ‘Garden State,’ an American independent film. While different from Hollywood productions, it still exhibits genre characteristics. The film’s synopsis classifies it as both comedy and drama. However, due to the nature of independent films, this genre classification is merely superficial. Classifying it as a comedy is particularly somewhat erroneous. The comedic elements permeating the entire film lack the satirical elements typical of the traditional comedy genre. Rather than satirizing social absurdities, this film elicits smiles from the audience by depicting ordinary events that could occur in daily life.
The drama genre classification is also too broad, so I will analyze this film within the drama genre, specifically within the framework of a personal drama, particularly a coming-of-age film. I will also examine this film through the framework of a romantic comedy.

 

‘Garden State’ Plot

The film’s plot is as follows. Andrew LaZrim, who left home long ago, returns to his hometown, ‘Garden State,’ to attend his mother’s funeral. A TV talent who works as a restaurant waiter, he has lived most of his life dependent on tranquilizers, enduring extreme loneliness. When his mother suffered from depression and a nervous breakdown, Andrew, who resented and blamed her, impulsively pushed her, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. His father, Gideon, a psychiatrist, began administering drugs to the young boy to numb his son’s pain.
After burying his mother, Andrew resolves to break free from the drugs and find himself. During this journey, he meets Sam, who is confident and vibrant, unlike Andrew. Sam’s warmth and thoughtfulness begin to open Andrew’s heart. With Sam’s love and the help of his friend Mark, Andrew confronts his true self and seeks reconciliation with his father. While leaving Garden State to return to L.A., Andrew realizes that life is about accepting things as they are. He gets off the plane to meet Sam.

 

Garden State as a Romantic Comedy

The protagonists of Garden State, viewed as a romantic comedy, are Andrew Largeman and Sam. As these two protagonists develop their love, Andrew grows. Examining the characters’ traits, much like Truman in the film ‘The Truman Show’ being surrounded by a false world, Largeman is also someone who hasn’t fully grown up. He remains stuck at the age of nine when he started taking medication. The drugs prevent him from feeling pain or sadness, but they also prevent him from experiencing joy or happiness. Returning to his hometown, Garden State, he stops taking the medication and, with Sam and Mark’s help, finds his true self.
Meanwhile, Sam suffers from epilepsy but is a bright character who tries to see the positive side of the world. Yet she too is not perfect. She sees herself as strange, reaches out to others first, but also harbors a fear of relationships. Sam is also a unique individual who engages in creative actions no one else would attempt. She fills the role of the mother figure Andrew lacked, aiding his personal growth. These two distinct characters meet, and love blossoms.
The two protagonists first encounter each other in a hospital. A woman wounded by epilepsy yet radiating brightness meets a man whose childhood experience of having a disabled mother led him to rely on medication, seeking to shield himself from further worldly pain. Their meeting does not reflect the specific class or social circumstances mirrored in 1920s screwball comedies. They meet purely as individuals. This shows how modern society has changed significantly from the past. After the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, modern society no longer forces individuals to belong to a certain class or adhere to specific ideologies.
In the recently released film ‘She Writes the Lyrics, He Writes the Music,’ the two also meet and fall in love as individuals caught in specific situations, rather than defined by class. Today’s romantic comedies seem to downplay the social aspects of screwball comedies. This film lacks the typical bickering scenes seen in standard romantic comedies. The dialogue is also relatively sparse compared to other films. The catalyst for their closeness is a short trip to a quarry. Andrew confirms his love for Sam and they share their first kiss. The romantic comedy film ‘What Happened One Night’ and the recent romantic comedy ‘Romantic Holiday’ also feature love stories unfolding during a journey, confirming this film’s romantic comedy characteristics.
Furthermore, the film’s scene composition also reveals romantic comedy elements. Scenes often feature close-ups of the two characters whispering sweet nothings or show them separated from the group. Close-ups appear in the bathtub scene when Andrew sheds his first tears, and even when Andrew and Sam are among their friends at the pool, a low-angle shot is used to emphasize their separation. Furthermore, the final scene simultaneously depicts the classic airport farewell and reunion. Airports are frequently used locations in romance films, as seen in movies like ‘Singles’ and ‘Is This Love?’
Finally, consider the archetypal nature of the characters. The female character ‘Sam’ portrayed in this film embodies the fairy-like image men often idealize. She suddenly appears and heals the man’s wounded past. Her vulnerability makes Andrew want to protect her, and her maternal nature helps him grow. Examples of romantic comedies where such a woman facilitates a man’s growth include ‘Sweet and Lowdown’ and ‘Prime Love’.

 

‘Garden State’ as a Coming-of-Age Film

Within genre categories, films that cannot be definitively classified into specific genres like melodrama, horror, or sci-fi are often grouped under ‘drama’. Strictly speaking, however, ‘drama’ is not a genre. The term ‘drama’ encompasses all films with a story. In a narrow sense, drama is not strictly a genre, but it functions like one. However, even this narrow definition is too broad, so dramas are further divided into personal dramas and social dramas based on the film’s theme. Growth films fall within the category of personal dramas.
Most films can be seen as falling within the coming-of-age film category. In crime films, detectives grow while solving cases; protagonists who experience the pain of love grow through that pain; and protagonists in horror films also grow through survival. If all film protagonists grow, then the category of coming-of-age films needs to be precisely defined. The film ‘Garden State’ can also be placed within the coming-of-age film category.
Coming-of-age films feature elements that hinder the protagonist’s growth. In Garden State, this is the emotional suppressant Andrew takes. His growth halted at age nine, when he started taking the medication after hurting his mother. His room is entirely white, evoking a mental hospital more than purity. Here, white signifies an emotionless state. He feels nothing in life, reaching a state of self-alienation.
To grow, one must remove obstacles to growth and have a helper to assist. In this film, that helper is ‘Sam’. While stopping the medication is the protagonist’s voluntary decision, Sam provided the foundation that allowed him to sustain that choice. In the ‘Kieran’s Quarry’ scene, after Andrew shouts at the ground, he kisses Sam and sheds tears for the first time in front of her. Here, Sam emerges as the figure facilitating Andrew’s growth.
Furthermore, contrasting with the growing character, a character who fails to grow appears. While the protagonist grows, the contrasting character remains stuck in their previous state. In this film, Andrew’s father takes on that role. Andrew’s father is a psychiatrist and also his primary doctor. He controls Andrew’s emotions to prevent him from being hurt by the world. He believes that a happy life means not being hurt by the world at all. However, he is also a flawed father who is awkward in conversations with his son and unable to accept Andrew’s attempts at reconciliation. The father maintains a consistent demeanor from beginning to end.
As Andrew stops taking his medication, he breaks free from his father, his primary physician, and instead of feeling happiness, he also experiences sadness and anger. At ‘Kieran’s Quarry’, he sheds the emotions he suppressed with drugs for 17 years, from age 9 to 25. He feels himself, feels love, and embraces life. In this film, the protagonist grows from a child into an adult, from a person who lost his self into a person who lives life. Thus, the film ‘Garden State’ possesses the characteristics of a coming-of-age story.

 

Garden State Scene Analysis – Use of Bird’s-Eye Shots

This film makes extensive use of bird’s-eye shots. These shots allow the viewer to grasp the relationships between the characters at a glance. In the scene of his mother’s funeral, the bird’s-eye shot shows Andrew isolated from the other mourners. In the pool scene, a bird’s-eye shot is also used to show Andrew and Sam separated from their friends. Furthermore, the bird’s-eye shot in the scene where they bury the hamster gives the feeling that someone is watching over their lives from above. This makes us feel as if we are witnessing Andrew’s growth from beginning to end.

 

Garden State Scene Analysis – Characters Walking Into Their Own Point-of-View Shots

The scene where a character walks into what appeared to be a POV shot can be confusing. Wasn’t this a POV shot? But if we consider it a POV shot here, the characters are walking into their own POV shots. This scene expresses the characters’ desire for someone to watch over their lives. Though lacking, these ordinary people simply wish for someone to watch over their lives.

 

Conclusion

As examined earlier, the film ‘Garden State’ possesses characteristics of both romantic comedy and coming-of-age film. Two people meet, and the woman helps heal the man’s wounds. This film is built on the love between two characters, irrespective of class conventions. Elements of coming-of-age films are also clearly present, and common elements can be found in films like ‘Kids Return’, ‘Little Runners’, ‘Beijing Bicycle’, and ‘About a Boy’, which are also called coming-of-age films.
The protagonists of coming-of-age films either have the will to grow or are placed in situations where they must grow. Their conflicts arise between the society that demands growth and their inability to meet those demands. Furthermore, their growth must be clear enough for the audience to notice and must have a reason. From this perspective, ‘Garden State’ adheres faithfully to the framework of a coming-of-age film. The difference lies in the fact that while most protagonists in coming-of-age films are children, the protagonist in this film is outwardly an adult. Externally, he appears problem-free, but internally, the film shows that the protagonist, who has not truly become an adult, must break free from the constraints tied to his past through his growth.
To understand genre structure, one must consider the social functions and formal conventions shared by genre films. However, the message conveyed in ‘Garden State’ appears to be an everyday, personal story. At the end, Andrew repeats to Sam at the airport, “Life is just there.” As he matures, he experiences not only joy and happiness but also anger and sorrow. This emphasizes that society is formed by the accumulation of individual lives, rather than conveying a broader social message.
This film, which can be interpreted as ‘an ordinary world created by strange people,’ follows genre conventions but focuses more on its small, personal stories than on the social function of genre cinema. As a romantic comedy, it also concludes with a happy ending. While lacking the social critique elements found in screwball comedies, it follows the standard format of a romance film. The romance aids the protagonist’s growth, and this growth strengthens the love between the two leads. The film ‘Garden State’ can be described as a combination of a coming-of-age story and a romance film.