My wife showed me Waking Life way back when we first started dating (around 2006 or so). She thought it was the best film ever. Her previous boyfriend and all her other college friends were liberal arts majors, so it was championed in their circle as a crowning achievement of film entertainment, possibly the greatest film ever made.

I, on the other hand, thought it was the most pretentious piece of artsy garbage I’d ever seen. And I was a huge fan of philosophy and human psychology in those days. I was so disappointed in that film and its poor attempt to convey its themes.

I felt like the philosophical discussions were all unimaginative topics, presented to the audience as if they were deep revelations. But there was no deeper message, no inspiring new thoughts to convey. Just a bunch of common philosophical themes that we’ve seen explored in dozens of other films. But this one refused to commit to an actual understanding of those themes, instead leaving them vague and open-ended, so you can project your own meanings on them instead of the creator doing actual work or showing any knowledge or understanding.

Heck, it didn’t even have a decent flow to the story. There wasn’t really a plot, just a bunch of disjointed thoughts that the creator wanted to say without knowing how to properly convey it on screen. There weren’t even decent transitions between topics, and the main character just sort of faded out of the story as it got lost in its tunnel of thought-dumping on the viewer. I absolutely hated that film.

I last watched it nearly 2 decades ago. I’ve wanted to rewatch it again and see if my feelings about it still hold up. My wife has rewatched it since, and she now agrees with me that it’s a pretty pretentious piece of work. Maybe we should both check it out again and reevaluate.