Zach Braff has made it. Both script, directing and main acting, and everything is more than all right. This is a film without violence about people living ordinary extra-ordinary lives and it's much more interesting than extra-ordinary murders, which very, very few, even in the USA, encounter.

The "hero" has been going on tranquilizers for all his grown up-life and even before that. He's got no feelings left, not even for the death of his mother. Then he meets a girl, well acted indeed by Natalie Portman, who unlocks him slowly, saying the right things all the time without knowing it.

Hours after you've seen this, you realize that here was a crucial moment, this was a turning point and so on. The love story gets a little sentimental at the end, but still this is a film that lives long after you've seen it through.

This was almost the perfect movie. The acting was great, the direction was great, the script was brilliant, and the location shoots were perfect. Probably the most amazing thing about this movie was the screen stealing show stopping performance of Natalie Portman. She showed this brilliance in "Leon" aka "The Professional", and once again amazed with her talent. It contains different humour to your usual American movie and was a needed hit in the movie circles of 2004.

My only problem was a little part of the story that seemed out of place and not needed. This is not a spoiler, it is his friends wealth and invention. They just seemed unnecessary to me. This is a minor complaint and I eagerly anticipate Zach's next work. He could quite possibly end out being more famous behind the camera than in front of it.

Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) is a troubled, depressed, and heavily medicated actor who once played a retarded quarterback on TV. He's now just a waiter in LA. He returns home to his mother's funeral, and his overbearing psychiatrist father (Ian Holm). He reconnects with an old friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard),and new girl Sam (Natalie Portman).

Written and directed by Zach Braff, this is a very impressive big screen debut for him. He has a good eye for interesting visuals. The story does meander as he drifts. It has an ethereal aimless feel to the movie. That is until he meets Natalie Portman. She's at her height of her IT girl phase, and there is a great reason for it. She's completely magnetic on screen. It's easy why anyone would fall head over heels for her. She plays the MPDG who brings him out of his depression.