“You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life I swear,” Natalie Portman says in “Garden State.” With that, The Shins shot to massive fame off the back of “New Slang,” while everyone swooned to Zach Braff‘s directorial debut, until they decided it was apparently one of the worst movies ever. (Guys, it’s not that bad—there, we said it.) A decade later and Braff is back and causing more controversy with the Kickstarter-funded “Wish I Was Here,” which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Credit to Braff, he’s not shying away from what worked before.
Featuring lots of imagery, but little in the way of dialogue, the first trailer for the film brings back The Shins again, this time with “Simple Song” (great tune) backing things up. The movie tells the story of Aidan Bloom, a 35-year-old struggling actor, father and husband who can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids. So, he decides to home school them, with unexpected results. Our man on the ground at Sundance, Cory Everett, was less than impressed, writing that Braff’s film was “bogged down by an overabundance of subplots and increasingly maudlin dramatic turns that threaten to sink the entire affair.”
Co-starring Joey King, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad and Ashley Green, “Wish I Was Here” opens on July 25th. Watch below.
