Garden State is not New Jersey - Zach Braff never even got caught in traffic on the Parkway. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, now studied assiduously at Penn alongside Citizen Kane, seems closer, at least stereotypically. Even so, New Jersey is not just Asian guys speaking like Jewish guys while driving stoned down the Turnpike (though often it does seem like it). So, what cinematic exit must one take in order to experience the "true" New Jersey?
It depends whom you ask. If it is an outsider answering - … la Woody Allen in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) or Louis Malle in Atlantic City (1980) - it's a safe bet that our cinematic state would be populated exclusively by coquettish dye-jobs and consonant-dropping philistines. So instead, it's better to look inward at the native children forging our image on the silver screen. In fact, Thomas Edison made the very first American moving pictures in his Black Maria movie studio in Menlo Park. And true to form, New Jersey continues to beget some very talented filmmakers.
Perhaps the most significant recent Jersey film was New Providence's novice filmmaker Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent (2003), which depicts the relationship between a depressed artist (Patricia Clarkson), a bored Cuban immigrant (Bobby Cannavale) and a mistreated achondroplastic dwarf (Peter Dinklage). This film portrays three otherwise completely disparate lost souls coming together in the part of the state one seldom sees - the lush, green hills of northern Passaic County.
On the other hand, Kevin Smith of Highlands has managed to capture the essence of what it means to live within the gravitational pull of New York City. New Jerseyans wish to emulate that glamorous world across the Hudson, but perhaps due to acid rain and Superfund contamination, come off as pseudo-cosmopolitan posers. Clerks (1994), Mallrats (1995) and Chasing Amy (1997) in particular paint New Jerseyans as would-be Woody Allen personalities. The characters (often incorrectly) cite philosophy, debate retail etymology as if it were Tolstoy and generally try to unravel the value of love in a world where Alanis Morissette is God.
At the other end of the spectrum lies the jaded world of Newark's Todd Solondz, a man heavily influenced by fellow Newarker Philip Roth. In Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) we see the archetypal New Jerseyans whom we Pennsters have come to know during Family Weekend: the wannabe cool father (Matthew Faber), the blinged-out mother with a fake tan (Angela Pietropinto) and the mediocre younger sibling (Heather Matarazzo). However, unlike the characters of Kevin Smith, these Solondz personalities attempt to escape to Manhattan only to discover they cannot outrun their suburban habitus. Solondz's cinematic eye captures an even angrier maelstrom of suburban woe in Happiness (1998). These include a hopelessly idealistic do-gooder named Joy (Jane Adams) and a pharmacologically adept child molester (Dylan Baker) whose surname is taken from the Essex County borough of Maplewood. Indeed, this emphasizes a central theme of Solondz's oeuvre: Even wealthy suburbs, in spite of their pathological need to keep up appearances, are rife with their own evils and disconcerting vicissitudes.
It's true that Solondz tends to shout where a whisper would suffice, but his contribution to our understanding of Jersey life is undeniable. Indeed, in Solondz's canon, as well as in the other films mentioned herein, all point to New Jersey as not a unique place in our American life, but rather as a quintessence thereof. To speak of the travails of New Jersey life, be it in its urban, suburban or bucolic spaces, is to speak of all America - for demographically, politically (yes, there are quite a few conservatives) and culturally, New Jersey is America.
