Garden State

Directed by Zach Braff On general release in the United States UK release date: 26 November www2.foxsearchlight.com/gardenstate

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It has been more than 40 years since Ken Kesey, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, described electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a trip to “that filthy brain-murdering room that the black boys call the ‘Shock Shop,’” and almost 30 since Milos Forman's film adaptation of Kesey's novel swept the American Academy Awards. Yet despite decades of evidence that ECT is both safe and effective, its public image has never fully recovered.

And now, with the treatment of depression under renewed scrutiny, we have Garden State—an independent film from first time director Zach Braff that dramatises the dangers of prescribing antidepressant drugs to children. Perhaps profiting from the ongoing …