My final thoughts / review...

Last night, after many long years since last watching this film, I decided to give it another viewing. I remember when this film first came out back in 05. I was really young at the time; but back then, I considered this one of my favorite movies. And now, at the age of 24, after watching it again, this movie isn't exactly how I remembered it. It's not the masterpiece that I deemed it to be. But then again, that's not to say that I hated it either.

I was reading some reviews on Imdb, and man, some people were super harsh when it came to reviewing this film. And others were way too over-the-top in labeling it as a classic. This film was supposed to be a satire piece, making a statement about the dysfunctional youth of modern day suburbia, as well as the harm revolved around America's prescription drug epidemic.

I think this film struggled to find it's genre. It juggled between being a dark comedy, a serious film, and an indie-satire film. The constant changing tones of the film is what made it difficult for me to take the story and characters seriously. And there were definitely a lot of contrived and unnecessary characters and elements throughout the film. If I were the writer/director, I would've condensed and simplified the story a bit more. And some have described this film as being shallow. And my argument would be...maybe it's supposed to be shallow. Seeing that the film revolves around a suburban community of teenagers hooked on prescription drugs, and superficial uncaring parents, the tone of shallowness in my opinion seems reasonable. If that makes sense.

Is this film an all-time classic? Nah, not really. But it's not terrible either. It is what it is. Take it for what it's worth. I think some people just over-analyzed the film's message. I thought the cast was great by the way. It's worth at least one viewing.