{Zoom} The Shins: This song will change your life
In the early 2000s, independent cinema began nurturing a female character archetype designed to rescue emotionally stunted male protagonists from their own insecurities through eccentricity, vinyl records, and “cute” tunes: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl phenomenon. Notable examples included Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown, Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer, or Mary-Elizabeth Winstead in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Garden State (2004) didn’t invent the manic pixie dream girl trope, but it certainly popularized and fueled it in this scene between Natalie Portman and Zach Braff.