I was up late last night and decided to watch this from the DVR.

I need to start watching movies when they come out if only to avoid the hype distracting me from taking apart or enjoying movies, because I liked this movie, but I would take myself out of the moment trying to see that it's Oscar-worthy.

The device of taking a young actor and tracking the story of a film alongside his physical growth is genius and is a better device than the free-flowing camerawork and story of 'Slacker' to me.

The performances all around are well executed and like other posters have said, remarkably naturalistic and emotionally effecting.

I am not white and had a relatively stable childhood so while I couldn't relate to the actual events of shuttling back and forth from parent to parent and moving around, the emotional beats of the movie were quite relateable. Just the experience and the emotional toll of being a child and knowing your well-being, safety and development depend on adults that don't quite have life figured out related to me.

I think the connection to the movie comes from watching the kids react to the chaos of their upbringings, and recalling how stressful living out the consequences of the mistakes of adults.

You'd think a movie about childhood would show kids developing the most, but it seemed the parents changed more than the kids.

And that development was also wide-ranging and also hard-fought.

Seeing the father (Hawke) turn from a well-meaning dad who struggled with responsibility turn into the conservative, mini-van driving, God-fearing man was a trip. I kind of felt a measure of sympathy for his character because of the cost of his spirit fatherhood and responsibility took on him.

The mother (Aroquette) remain constant in her character was nice. That unfortunately meant that she made the mistake of marrying men who were charming but struggling with their spirituality and seemed to take that grief out on their families. Seeing her develop and find success was heart-warming.

I might be the only one who didn't like 'The Scene' by Patricia. I don't have kids and considering all the strife and success they had experienced I could see her being emotionally raw, but her character's personality seemed more grounded than to basically say MJ's moving out was about her not him.

My favorite scene might be the one in the kitchen at MJ's graduation party. The exchange of the parents talking about their blended families and hinting at their entanglements was nice. Even the part about the father leaving the money in the car was a needling but well-done moment.

It was worth seeing.