'Wish I Was Here' is a very touching film. My best advice is don't go in expecting a hilarious comedy, but nor is it a dour/depressing drama. Braff is steadily becoming an accomplished director, knowing when to lighten the mood, but importantly, when to keep it real and meaningful. In fact, I probably liked 'Wish I Was Here' more than 'Garden State'...The film basically follows Aidan (Braff) and his family as they struggle to live their lives in Los Angeles - he's an out-of-work actor, wife Sarah (Hudson) is in a dull admin job, they can't afford to keep the kids in expensive Jewish school, his brother's an ambitionless drop-out, and to top it all off, his dad has lung cancer. Sounds bad? That's the basic premise - how does the human heart overcome such adversity?Once again, a fantastic soundtrack - featuring Bon Iver, The Shins & Paul Simon - with plenty of lovely moments, whether it's a sight gag (pamphlet container) or a simple explanation of something odd (the contact lenses). There's definitely some funny moments, mostly thanks to the youngest kid, Tucker (Gagnon, from 'Looper' & 'Extant') trying to understand what he's being told. Oh, and Turk from Scrubs turns up briefly! Sure, it gets a bit dramatic in parts and perhaps doesn't have the strongest ending.But, that being said, Grace (King), Gabe (Patinkin) & Noah (Gad) all have some scenes that seriously pull at the heart strings/tear ducts! The delicate moments are handled exceptionally and there's plenty of overt and concealed meanings in most of the scenes.

I couldn't warm to this movie. The characters were too unlikable (apart from Bloom's wife). There are also a few anomalies in the plot. For example, the family at the center of the movie live in a comfortable, large house yet the husband is a struggling actor who has to rely on his dad to pay his kids school fees; while his wife works in what seems to be a mind-numbing, low-paid job. And as for unlikable characters, don't get me started on Noah! And then there's the confusing time-line. In the morning his dad is talking about going into hospital for specialist cancer treatment; then what seems like that afternoon, he's in hospital with only a short time to live. And you either like the humor or you don't - I didn't. I don't recommend it.

I'd heard about this flop on Billy Eichner's show as he made fun of the fact that Braff crowd-sourced this terrible project by raising $3 million (!) Three f****** millions that could have gone to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, build schools, fund medical research, etc. The title is grammatically incorrect, since it should read "Wish I Were Here", but that's the least of the bad – I could only bear with it for 30 minutes. As other stuff Braff had put out, this too is a sophomoric and lukewarm slop with see-through acts and lame emotional jerks. The only noteworthy scene I saw was about Hudson's nips poking her tank top, but I don't get how the hell Mandy Patinkin got dragged into it. At this point, Braff should realize that it's time to hang it up and rest on "Scrubs" laurels, a funny show for its writing and good supporting actors, surely not his pathetic and effeminate character. If you too can't sleep and happen to find this mess while flipping channels, keep on flipping.

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.