Watch Wish I Was Here For Free

Why so much hype?

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The Message is great, relevant, but the delivery is quite crude, and frankly the jokes are too much toilet humor (for example, the guy is caught masturbating by his dad - what kind of subsequent interaction could be worth filming? It's unpleasant to watch esp. with younger relatives). As much as I welcome asking questions such as What are we doing in life? - the theme feels digested and overstated, whereas a higher quality delivery would attempt to induce the same epiphanies which in this film were stated as a matter of fact, leaving SOMETHING to the imagination. The focus on small fun (consumerist) "dreams" like driving an Aston Martin, though innocent, is ultimately shallow. Lastly, an example: wife tells husband that she is harassed at work, he talks like he will go and talk to that man, but she starts talking him out of it. I mean, I know people do that, but it's totally counterproductive, and it is not the only example. Bad taste.

This Film was great, I love the way Zach Braff performs and the way some scenes are produced! I loved especially the scene in the end where Katie jumps into the pool and the moment is stretched into 5 minutes. One gets so soaked into the moment and just when its over you remember that she jumped and probably felt this range of introspections.

I was expecting a bit more, but overall I thought Wish I Was here was a great movie. It was nice to see a moving movie that was both touching and funny without following the same storyline as a lot of other films. I was really interesting in seeing this film since it was funded almost entirely by fans. You could tell that Zach Braff took advantage of the freedom that a Kickstarter funded film gave him. I really liked that it was a somewhat quirky indie film without being the cliché love story kind of indie film. My main problem with Wish I Was Here was that at times, it seemed as though they were trying too hard to be deep and meaningful. The music was paired perfectly with the film and the fantasy superhero scenes worked surprisingly well with the rest of the film. Despite the occasional cheesy inspirational line, the movie was really beautiful and left the entire theater crying.

I normally don't review movies - I typically enjoy them or not and I'd rather let people experience in their own way. That said, I feel compelled to recommend this movie. I found a Zach Braff movie OnDemand and then noticed that Donald Faison was in it! Naturally, expected some "JD and Turk" humor...in Scrubs, they played so brilliantly off of each other! This is not that movie...just know that this movie is much more. The acting is phenomenal, the story is real, it has some funny parts, but mostly it's a really touching story about relatable and believable people. Having lost my sister to cancer last year, I was moved and also found comfort from this movie. Low ratings for this movie are probably from people disappointed that it wasn't an adapted version of JD and Turk. Keep an open mind and you will enjoy this movie!