Those Big Moments can represent catharsis, however, only to a viewer already on Braff’s wavelength. Otherwise, they merely strike audience members (including myself) as self-indulgent, even silly. And that’s probably all right with Braff.

By the end of the film, I felt like Wish I Was Here was trying to spoonfeed the audience hipster wisdom.

Just about all of the "compromises" that Braff says he'd have been forced to make (and I'm slightly perturbed to say this, being a fairly consistent support-the-artist type) would have made 'Wish I Was Here' a better film.

Ultimately mawkish and bittersweet, 'Wish I Was Here' is [a] second-rate meditation on [the] phoenix cycle that's virtually guaranteed to drag you by the heels into a depressive state.