All the best movies are the ones about me.

Because even though I was roughly the same age as the lad in the film during the mid 90s, [spoiler] I was not the by-product of a single parent household, I was not bullied by an older sibling, I did not experiment with the darkness in the ways this boy did [/spoiler] . I was just a child questioning his sexuality from the comfort of his upper-middle class upbringing.

My point is that I and the boy in this film had absolutely nothing in common except everything. Because watching this film I remembered trying too hard to be liked, struggling to exist beyond my parents' expectations and trying to carve out my own identity from a block of insecurities. So, this film was about me in the same way it's about every adolescent who outgrew his sheltered home life.

Jonah Hill does a remarkable job directing (aided immensely by a solid cast, excellent locations, and a soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that, like the rest of the film, reeks of the 90s without stinking of it), and his subtle story telling takes what was a good film and makes it a great one.