“Wish I Was Here” would’ve been a better title for 2004’s “Garden State,” where Zach Braff’s character’s use of strong anti-depressants keeps him from engaging with the world. It doesn’t work as well with the actual film of this title because, frankly, the 35-year-old Aiden Bloom (Braff) doesn’t have it all that bad.
“Wish I Was Here” has been described as a spiritual sequel to “Garden State,” and I had high hopes for it, especially since I had the Panama City, Fla., movie theater to myself – the same thing that happened when I saw “Garden State” in Edina, Minn., 10 years ago. If you throw in “The Last Kiss” (2006) – where Braff’s character learns to appreciate his wife after almost losing her – it caps a spiritual trilogy. The great soundtrack is there, led by The Shins’ melodic and atmospheric “So Now What?” The dry humor is there, centered verbally on the swear jar atop the fridge in the kitchen of Aiden and Sarah (Kate Hudson), and visually on Aiden’s brother Noah (Josh Gad) dressing up as a space man for Comic-Con. And like “Garden State,” it has beautiful shots that fade out to a wider angle as that expertly selected soundtrack does its thing. In this case, we get desert and ocean vistas, as the film is set in Los Angeles.
The characters’ problems seem pretty trivial, though. I wonder if screenwriters Zach (who also directs) and Adam Braff were cautious about being too quirky. A 20-something Natalie Portman having epilepsy that forces her to wear a bike helmet all the time is adorable, but would such oddball problems work for 30-somethings? I think they would have, as unmotivated genius layabout Noah is more sympathetic than Aiden. Aiden says he’s pursuing his acting dream, but why can’t he get a day job in the meantime? Even Andrew Largeman had a waiter gig. Instead, Sarah supports the family with her mindless data-input job at the water department that must pay rather well. Aiden is somehow under the extremely false impression that Sarah loves her job (one look at the rows of cubicles confirms the falsehood for the audience), and I guess that makes him feel less guilty about not bringing home the bacon.
The problems of the “Garden State” characters – while sometimes over-the-top and funny – felt universal, perhaps because they were 26-year-olds finding their identities. It’s not that the problems of 35-year-olds are automatically less interesting, but “Wish I Was Here” doesn’t have much of a sense of conflict or urgency. It does a decent job of showing how the brothers’ cancer-stricken dad, Gabe (Mandy Patinkin, playing it in the typical Mandy Patinkin style, but through a beard), has a lot of emotional power over his sons’ lives due to not having encouraged them when they were younger.
And being pulled out of her favorite school would certainly be traumatizing for a kid, as it is for Grace (Joey King from “Fargo”), and as such, she’s the film’s most sympathetic character. (The Blooms’ other kid, Tucker, is also culled from summer TV: Pierce Gagnon from “Extant.”) One scene that almost had me tearing up finds Grace (who wears a pink wig in a nice touch of quirk) giving her grandpa a pair of protective eyewear so he won’t be blinded by the light when he looks for Grandma in heaven. At other times, like the running joke about the kids thinking “poontang” is an astronaut’s drink, I was very aware of watching a scripted film.
I feel like there’s a good movie in here somewhere. The style, tone and performances are all present and accounted for, but I wish “Wish I Was Here” earned its big moments a bit more. Indeed, I wish it had more big moments instead of a series of pleasant small ones. As it stands, it’s a two-hour movie about a likeable, loving family that has it pretty good aside from a few universal problems like wanting a more enjoyable job, wanting a good school for your kids and going through the loss of a loved one. Individually, at least, those things have been done better in other movies – off the top of my head: “Horrible Bosses,” “Won’t Back Down” and “The Descendants.”
Even Braff’s B-game makes for an enjoyable couple of hours, but I wish I was back in 2004, experiencing his A-game again for the first time. Then again, maybe I brought my own 36-year-old cynicism to the theater this time. About 20 minutes into the movie, somebody came in and sat a few rows in front of me, and the film was no longer being screened just for me.