In his new film Garden State, Zach Braff tackles a story that reaches audiences of all ages and on different levels. He does a commendable job here in all three of his roles as actor, writer and director. “I wanted to make a smart love story for young people, and I wanted to make a movie that got across the feeling of what it’s like to come home,” he explained.

Andrew Largeman (Braff), a young man who has been hiding from his life by acting on television in Los Angeles, finally decides to return to New Jersey. Andrew wants to see old friends and experience familiar places from his past, but he must also deal with a painful part of his life that he’s been avoiding. His paraplegic mother recently committed suicide, and he must also confront his father (Ian Holm), a domineering man who always thinks his ideas of what Andrew should do with his life are the only answer.

Braff’s Andrew is immediately solemn and withdrawn when he arrives back home. But once he meets up with some of his old pals, most who are quite bizarre – a gravedigger and a guy who wears a real knight’s armor on his job – Andrew begins to relax and remember that life can also be fun. Braff’s role as Dr. John Dorain (JD) on the television comedy, Scrubs, and the years during his personal life that he admits to trying comedy are clearly evident in the comedic aspects of the story and its characters.

Andrew’s friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) is a gravedigger who lives with his pot-smoking mother (Jean Smart). Yet beyond his oddity and unpretentiousness, lies a man who has a deep understanding of many things, and he knows when Andrew really needs a shoulder to lean on.

Andrew’s dad, Gideon, is having his own midlife crisis. With the guilt of his dead wife, and a son who lives far away and cannot connect to him, Gideon does not know how to reach Andrew. But when Andrew returns home and divulges a startling revelation, he finally understands it’s he who must reach his father.

While trying to decide how he can do that, Andrew meets Sam (Natalie Portman), and loves everything about her because she seems so opposite to himself. His family is ordered, black and white and somber; her family life is chaotic, colorful and close-knit.

After finishing her sci-fi role as Senator Amidala in the Star Wars trilogy, Portman was ready for something different and found it in Garden State. “Sam is a funny girl,” she said, “but more importantly, she has problems, she’s got a sense of humor, but what I really appreciated was that she’s an interesting and complex as the male characters.”

Andrew loves the humor he finds in Sam and soon falls head over heels for her. She wants him to learn that if you can’t laugh at yourself, life isn’t worth living. But can she be the one to open him up to the change that will allow their relationship to work?

“Our main character is so entangled with his life, he doesn’t know how to move on, not by forgetting his past, but allowing that period of his life to be at rest so he can move on,” said Braff.

Garden State is at times poignant and often funny. It’s easy to connect with and enjoy this universal story about pain, loss, love and overcoming roadblocks.

(Released by 20^th Century Fox and rated “R” for language, drug use and a scene of sexuality.)