Garden Party

If you've been watching Zach Braff in wacky sitcom Scrubs (and if you haven't then you'd better be in a coma because it's pure genius) then Garden State will come a something of a revelation to you. Gone is the utterly demented and somewhat surreal tone of the madcap medical comedy and, in its place, is a thoughtful, touching and emotionally poignant drama that is at once a lamentation for lost youth, a personal quest for inner peace and a love song to New Jersey. "I think people will definitely be surprised by the multitalentedness of Zach," The particularly attractive Natalie Portman told Empire when we sidled up to her in the Odeon bar. "He not only wrote this piece that people are really relating to and that's speaking to so many people but directed and starred in it too. You know, every day in the States 20 people come up to me and tell me how much they relate to it in completely different ways - everyone has a different reaction to the film." Providing quite the contrast to his immaculately turned out co-star (still drawing Empire's eye in her very fetching black dress), Braff strolled in with a creased t-shirt, cardigan and jeans