Wish I Was Here

Ten years after Backyard State, Zach Braff delivers his second film as writer/director/star. He plays Aidan, an aspiring actor sent into a tailspin when his father (Mandy Patinkin) contracts cancer. Lacking – perhaps deliberately – its predecessor’s hipster edge, WIWH functions as a grown-up weepie, following Aidan on a journey of enlightenment.

Penned by Braff and brother Adam, there’s an roughness to the script – one subplot seems to exist solely to give Kate Hudson (Aidan’s wife) something to do – but there are genuinely touching moments amid the sludge.