I never really had the room or relationships that this film is centred around; in my house we were very rural and remote from casual friends popping in, and our garage was a freezing building with whatever semi-wild cats we 'owned' at that moment. So maybe this is why I was not overly taken by this film, even if I can see that its strength is how natural the garage and the central brother relationship feels. The plot is delivered in quick scenes spread over what feels like a year or years. It lets us experience key moments but also unimportant moments of drinking, smoking, arguing, or just hanging out. It pays this off in the end because it makes the film about the relationship, not any specific moment, and in the end this is what the film is about at its very core.
I felt it could have used a sharper delivery and a tougher edit though. The writing and performances gave a natural feel, but the downside of this is that it is very 'normal' - and 'normal' people talking is not as interesting as really well scripted dialogue which works in the context of the film but gives the viewer a lot in the words and in-between. This it doesn't do, and I felt that. Likewise while it benefits the film in some ways to see the small moments, it also makes it feel baggier than it needed to be - at some point I got the point and/or had understood this element of the relationship, so 4 or 5 more scenes doing the same didn't seem to add enough to justify the time taken.
It did still have a rough charm to it, and the location, writing, and performances do well to put the viewer into the relationship - I just felt it never got inside beyond the broadness (which to be fair, is a position probably true to the male IRL relationships).
