Zach Braff addresses the shortcomings of 2004's Garden State after 20 years

Zach Braff is addressing the apparent flaws of 2004's Garden State, nearly 20 years after its debut.

The 47-year-old Scrubs alum discussed the movie's detractors in a Tuesday interview with The Independent.

Braff, who also wrote and directed the movie, stars as the struggling actor Andrew Largeman, who travels to his New Jersey home to attend his mother's funeral. He encounters Natalie Portman's character Sam, whom he meets while in his past life.

Sam has been described as the original Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a term coined by film analyst Nathan Rabin in 2007 "to describe female love interests with no discernible inner life but for some reason a desperate need to make sad leading men feel better about themselves," according to The Independent.

"I was just copying Diane Keaton in Annie Hall and Ruth Gordon in Harold and Maude," Braff told the online newspaper. "Those were my two favorite movies growing up, and I was kind of taking those two female protagonists and melding them into Natalie Portman."

"Of course, I've heard and respect the criticism, but… I was a very depressed young man who had this fantasy of a dream girl coming along and saving me from myself."

"And so I wrote that character," Braff added.

The 2004 independent film's creative process, according to Braff, was inspired by his struggle with "something."

"I wasn't as extreme as Andy, but I was certainly battling my own demons. As I was writing it, I was hoping I could survive what became known as the quarter-life crisis, and depression, and fantasizing that the perfect woman would come along and rescue me," Braff said.