Review // Wish I Was Here

Wish I Was Here is the story of a 30-something actor who has lost his way in the world and is contemplating giving up on the dream. There are other stories around this of course; said actor’s father is dying of cancer and spends the money meant for his grand children’s private school tuition on controversial alternative medicine. The actor’s daughter is in the midst of tween angst and shaves off her hair out of protest over changing schools. And the actor’s wife is being sexually harassed at the office job she hates. But at the film’s heart it’s about a very difficult time in one man’s life and how he rises to the occasion.

That man is Zach Braff, or, should we say, Aidan. With finances tight and no acting-work coming in, he decides to home-school the children while his wife Sarah (Kate Hudson) plods away at her office job as the primary bread-winner. It’s not long before Aidan realizes his children are more advanced in their education than he is, and so he turns to alternative methods: teaching them to mend a fence, clean a pool and build a robot costume for his genius-hermit brother. Looming over all of this is the impending death of his father (Mandy Patinkin) and a final chance for reconciliation between the patriarch and his two underachieving sons.

Partially financed by a very successful Kickstarter campaign, the film feels appropriately personal. The story of a 30-something actor who has lost his way in the world and is contemplating giving up on the dream must in some ways be the story of Braff himself. After all, he is a 30-something actor, who, after struggling to get work after a long running sitcom, may very well be disillusioned by the industry. Write what you know right? That’s nothing new. What’s new is the fact that the film was funded largely by fans. Maybe some Scrubs fans, but we’re guessing the majority are fans of Braff’s directorial debut, 2004’s Garden State. It’s a novel new idea that is sure to rub some people the wrong way, but fans of Garden State will most likely be quite pleased with the finished product.

Funding controversies aside Wish I Was Here is a simple, saccharine story about family and fatherhood. Braff has put together a strong cast of actors including Mandy Patinkin, Kate Hudson, Josh Gad and Jim Parsons, but it’s the ladies that steal the show in this one. Hudson is a welcome sight onscreen and gets an interesting part to play as the woman forced to step into the role of family matriarch. As Aidan’s daughter Grace, Joey King nails the volatile self-righteousness found in most teenagers, and is by far the most interesting presence on screen. The nuanced gender roles presented in the film feel modern and refreshing, and are the highlight of the script by Braff and his brother Adam. This modernity is epitomized by Grace’s constant confusion over how the world doesn’t align with the old-fashioned rules she’s been taught at her Jewish private school. It’s one of the subtler running jokes in a film that is often anything but subtle.

Though Braff succeeds in creating interesting characters with intriguing problems, he misses the mark when it comes to having them actually do anything. Built around the looming death of a father figure and the legacy of disapproval he is leaving his two sons, the film’s characters too often act in grand moments of symbolism instead of realistic interactions. Long drawn-out scenes of slow-motion or montage underlined with pleasing indie-pop ballads are nice to look at (and have a certain LA futurist flair) but ultimately have all the meaning of a cola commercial.

In tone and subject matter Wish I Was Here is a fitting follow-up to Garden State. Like his previous effort, Braff grapples with the ideas of aging and death and the meaning of life, but can’t quite find anything to say about any of it. Wish I Was Here will act as a vessel for any sort of meaning you wish to attach, and in that way will be a very popular film, but it’s hard to see any intrinsic meaning through all the style. Braff is reaching for something universal, and for that he can be admired, but maybe next time he should focus on telling a story that goes somewhere and says something. Then I might buy in.

Reviewed by Evan Arppe.

Click here for more movie trailers!