deeply naturalistic characters and writing (whether down to their characteristics, behaviors, or even the dialogue itself), much moreso than most similar coming of age thing. probably a case by case thing and i could see why this felt the opposite for some but this really hit home for me and the performances in all of their quirks and awkwardness sealed it. not sure which version of this i saw on kanopy last night but i do have this sitting in my plex server with what was supposed to be the director's cut so i'm going to give it a glimpse to see. if what i watched wasn't the DC i might watch that soonish to see how it compares or maybe try to track down the other version that was floating down regardless because i love seeing how i feel about multiple cuts of things. 🤓