New Jersey has a special call to its young, even when they get older. If Bruce Springsteen had been born in Ohio, would he sing about it? Zach Braff walks in the footsteps of John Sayles (Return of the Secaucus Seven), shuffling back to his boyhood haunts and old conflicts in his native New Jersey.

For a guy who is an actor turned director, it is a pretty impressive stroll. As in most “return to” films, the plot doesn’t make a lot of difference. His mother has died and he goes back for the funeral. High school buddy Peter Sarsgaard is now a gravedigger. Langerman (Braff) is a hang loose, hang low, lost sort of guy who is still looking around corners hoping to find himself.

Then he meets Sam (Natalie Portman). She’s so far gone in Jersey she wears a helmet to keep her from bashing her head. Natalie Portman is one of the chameleon actors (Billy Crudup is another; though he isn’t in this movie). Natalie can be the lively center of a film, or so plain looking and featureless that she blends into the background. Either way her performances are always terrific. In Garden State, she’s not only there, she is it. The film comes alive with her: a neat trick in a movie about death.

Zach Braff works by absorbing the characters around him. Whether he can actually act or he is playing a credible version of Zach Braff is hard to tell. But he had the good sense to cast Natalie Portman and Peter Sarsgaard in his movie. They make the toll on the Garden State Parkway worth the price of going beyond the Meadowlands into the hazy unknown.