Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) has been living in a state of emotional suspended animation for a very long time, perhaps even since he was a kid. His father Gideon (Ian Holm), a psychiatrist, has for years shrouded his son’s emotions with prescriptions, which have done double duty by keeping a family secret between them quiet.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Andrew has found a new home as far away from his native New Jersey as you can get, in Hollywood, where he has become a moderately successful TV actor who supports himself as a moderately successful waiter. But when Large learns that his mother has died and he must return home to New Jersey for four days to attend her funeral, he decides to go off the pills.

At home, in the Garden State, Andrew re-connects with his old friends, who all call him “Large.” He first encounters his friend Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) at his mother’s graveside service, though Mark is not there as a mourner – he makes money working as a gravedigger. He invites Large to a party that night.

Later on, after getting pulled over by a really mean cop who turns out to be another old friend (Large learns from him that cops get laid a lot), Large walks into the kind of party that he remembers from high school. Smoky, boozy and filled with people his own age, the crowd still plays games like spin the bottle, only now they play on copious amounts of marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol. Large’s friend Mark is an instigator, but is also protective of Large. When someone asks Large why he is home from LA, Mark jumps in before Large can answer. “He’s here for a press junket,” he says, sparing Large and the rest of his friends.

The next morning, Large wakes up at Mark’s house – someone has written “BALLS” on his forehead – and a guy in a full suit of armor is clanking around the kitchen. This is Tim (Jim Parsons), the boyfriend of Mark’s mother Carol (Jean Smart), with whom Mark apparently still lives. From a deadly breakfast table conversation we learn that Carol’s boyfriend, who is in all likelihood younger than Mark, has worked his way up to a performing knight at the Medieval Times dinner theatre, and that Mark despises him. We also learn that Mark and his mother (Jean Smart) share a pot habit. We later learn that Mark supplements his income by lifting precious objects from the dead before he buries them.

From Mark’s house Large goes to an appointment his father made with Dr. Cohen (Ron Liebman) a neurologist. In the waiting room Large encounters Samantha (Natalie Portman) a bright, optimistic young woman with whom he establishes an instant rapport. With the doctor, we learn that Large has taken himself off the pills, and that despite a recurring headache, wants to stay off of them.

Large encounters Samantha in the parking lot and offers her a ride, which she accepts. At her home, Large meets Samantha’s mother, her adopted brother and her many, many pets. Indeed, it’s over the burial ceremony for one recently departed hamster that Large realizes he’s met someone very special.

After spending more time with Samantha (and also avoiding the inevitable Big Talk with his father), Large realizes that he might be in love, but knows he must return to Los Angeles in just a day or so. But before Large leaves, Mark insists upon dragging Large and Samantha on a trip that takes them from a Handi-World housewares store to an underground sex club in the basement of a hotel to a perfectly normal family who lives in an abandoned boat on the edge of a quarry. The goal of Mark’s quest is to return an object to its rightful owner, but the end result is something much deeper. Something happens to Large when he experiences the young family living in this rickety boat perched at the edge of an abyss that enables him to open up and express the newfound love he feels for Sam. Soaking wet, exhausted, and holding Samantha, Large is finally able to understand how to deal with his father, and their secret, honestly.