Fairly or unfairly, writer/director/comedian/hipster icon Zach Braff received a good bit of drubbing for taking to Kickstarter to finance his Garden State follow-up film Wish I Was Here. In the midst of the criticism leveled at the filmmaker for funding his film via a website intended to help projects of struggling artists, Braff still managed to raise over $3 million. Now, the first trailer for Wish I Was Here has hit the web, and it’s exactly what we expected it would be.
The film tells the story of Aidan Bloom (Braff), a struggling 35 year old actor trying to navigate adulthood with his two children and wife (Kate Hudson) in tow. He’s forced to start homeschooling his kids when his father (Mandy Patinkin) can no longer pay for their private school, and the only available public school is dying. Cue a journey about faith, loss, and love, with music by The Shins and Bon Iver.
The plot itself sounds just fine, and in the hands of a good filmmaker and writer there’s much that could be done with it. Maybe Braff has pulled it off after all – the film opened at Sundance and was instantly grabbed by Focus Features. That being said, the reviews coming out of the festival were not so good. Nor, I must admit, is the first trailer going to change anyone’s mind about Braff. Without covering much in the way of plot, we instead have some inspirational/quirky images of Bloom and his family set to music of The Shins. The whole thing looks more like a hipster music video than a film trailer.
If what we see here is any indication, Wish I Was Here will follow through on its promise to be a thirty-something version of Garden State. Whether or not that’s a good thing is entirely up to the audience.
Wish I Was Here will head to theatres on July 18th.
