Garden State (2004) has become one of my favorite films for multiple reasons, many of which relate some way to mental health, relationships and coming-of-age hardships. Written and directed by Zach Braff, Garden State serves as a reminder to its viewers that it’s okay not to be okay and normalizes the idea of mental health issues. While the film is quite simple and quirky, it uses motifs of mental health and medication, emotional numbness, and catharsis throughout to illustrate its main message.
At the beginning of the film, we are introduced to a seemingly clinically depressed aspiring actor, Andrew. It’s important to note that Andrew’s character during the first half of the film is numb and emotionless. This motif of emotional numbness is one of the more complex motifs in the film, because it makes a transformation toward the resolution. Simply put, Andrew is overmedicated and has become emotionally numb since his psychiatrist, who is also his father, started feeding him antidepressants as a kid. This is also critical to the motif of mental health and medication that is present throughout the film.
The first scene reveals Andrew sitting on an airplane while total chaos erupts around him. Babies are crying, oxygen masks are flailing, and things are being tossed and turned in all directions. Amidst all the rampant craziness, Andrew feels nothing. He sits patiently on the plane, completely expressionless. This transforms into a scene of Andrew lying in a white bed, in the center of a white, empty, undecorated bedroom. The use of white (or lack of color) serves as a metaphor for Andrew’s feelings: blankness, or white noise. We hear his answering machine play, revealing his emotionally frantic father on the other line mourning the loss of his wife, or more importantly, Andrew’s mother.
The relationship between Andrew and his father is a central component of the plot, serving as the main source of character tension which reveals the true manifestation of Andrew’s “depression.” Their relationship takes a turn once Andrew decides to leave his medication at his apartment in LA before he makes his trip back home to New Jersey to attend his mother’s funeral. We still see Andrew’s lack of emotion while he attends his mother’s funeral and reception, as well as when he joins a party thrown by his old high school friends. While everyone around him is smoking marijuana, taking ecstasy, drinking, laughing and having a blast, Andrew sits in silence and stares off into the distance. Yet again, the motif of emotional numbness and the side effects of antidepressants.
As a result of not taking his medication, Andrew experiences negative withdrawal symptoms, specifically headaches. He decides to see another doctor in town, and for the first time, it isn’t his father. When the doctor asks Andrew if any of the antidepressants have helped him, he confesses, “No. I mean I don’t know. It’s recently occurred to me that I might not even have a problem. Only I’d never know it, because as far back as I can remember I’ve been medicated. I grew up on it. I left them in LA. This is the first time I haven’t had it in my body since I can remember.” He later elaborates by saying his father likes to think the meds make him happy, and clearly, that isn’t the case for Andrew. The doctor responds with a concerning comment, “With all the Lithium he’s had you on it’s amazing you can even hear me right now.” This entire conversation between Andrew and the doctor reveals why he’s developed a dependency on these medications, and more specifically, sheds light on the reality of taking antidepressants as a young adult. Because his father has overmedicated him, he’s lost all ability to experience not only positive emotion, but negative emotion too. His constant “need” for these medications is really imaginary, and he comes to realize this as he experiences a colorful world without them.
The beauty of this film is the transformation of Andrew’s behavior when he chooses not to rely on medication to regulate his emotions (or lack thereof). His character begins exhibiting behaviors of emotional catharsis, and this is where the motif of emotional numbness transitions to emotional catharsis. In one particular scene, Andrew, Sam (his girlfriend) and his old friend Mark stand atop a bulldozer resting at the edge of a quarry in the pouring rain, and they scream at the top of their lungs. This scene not only represents the motif of emotional catharsis, but it illustrates the development of Andrew’s character and his new ability to simply feel something.
Andrew’s transition from numbness to happiness becomes especially evident when he begins to fall in love with Sam, and later, he chooses to finally stand up to his father after avoiding him for days. Unapologetically, Andrew confesses, “I mean I’m not gonna take all those drugs anymore. Because they’ve left me completely numb. I have felt so fucking numb to everything I have experienced in my life.” He continues, “And for me, what I really want more than anything, is for it to be okay with you for me to feel something again; even if it’s pain… We might not be as happy as you always hoped we’d be. But for the first time let’s allow ourselves to be whatever it is that we are… and that’ll be better.” This emotional conversation between Andrew and his father serves as a big example for the motif of character catharsis, in addition to the motif of mental health and the use of medication. Andrew’s efforts to help his father understand that it’s okay to not be okay; to feel sadness and fear, as well as happiness and excitement, finally come full circle.
Cover image sourced from: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/garden_state