Middle school is a challenging time for many in the United States. Puberty and all its associated hormonal changes bring out a lot of conflicting emotions. Childhood friends naturally grow apart as each pursues their own individual interests. The urge to grow up constantly conflicts with the desire for things to stay the same, an often contradictory and certainly confusing era.

Good Boys is more of a film about friendship than aging, understanding the intertwined relationship between the two. Max (Jacob Tremblay), Thor (Brady Noon), and Lucas (Keith L. Williams) have been friends for their entire lives, referring to their small clique as “The Bean Bag Boys.” The beginning of middle school threatens the status quo, as each of the boys possess different interests that could potentially tear their trio apart.

A drone borrowed from Max’s father (Will Forte) sends the boys on a quest to avoid punishment after disobeying orders not to play with the expensive toy. The subsequent adventure stays within the confines of the ages of the leads, often diving into the realm of absurd without being unrealistic. The digital age has opened up plenty of less than age-appropriate doors for pre-teens.

The film is wildly profane for a narrative anchored by children. The kids frequently swear and find themselves in plenty of sexually-explicitly scenarios, willfully ignorant of their surroundings. Shock value makes up a lot of the humor, but the writing and acting are quite strong, allowing for plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that don’t rely strictly on cringe comedy.

For some, the crude humor coming out of the mouths of children might be too much. The child actors have an uncanny sense of comedic timing for jokes meant to sail right over their characters’ heads. Some of the laughs come from their obliviousness to the situations, but they’re not there to be the butt of the gags. There’s a level of deadpan comedy present that becomes oddly endearing after a while.

Plenty of its moments are absurdist in nature, but the narrative never loses sight of reality. Kids these days are exposed to quite of a lot of horrifying imagery that makes plenty of us happy to have grown up in an era before the Internet. There are plenty of hilarious moments born out of watching the children react to situations that maybe shouldn’t feel as normal to us as adults as they often do.

Lurking beneath all the inappropriate jokes is a layer of warmth to the narrative. For all the situations that the boys don’t understand, the three do possess a level of recognition for the transient nature of this stage in their lives. They’re best friends, for now, completely unsure of what the future will hold.

Good Boys couples its mature humor with themes that resonate for audiences of all ages, even those that need adult supervision to see the film. Growing up is scary. The film tackles the sensation of aging in a mature manner while maintaining a sense of optimism.

Few films manage to be simultaneously hilarious and heartfelt. Powered by an excellent script and some top-notch performances from its young leads, Good Boys is a late summer hit. Children might be a little horrified by some of the scenarios, but the life lessons presented are well worth a few unsavory conversations after the credits roll.

Hollywood has a certain affection for films about its own lore. As a city that welcomes so many, myself included, Los Angeles is an easy city to dream about. The very notion of living here is itself a part of the fantasy, opportunities seemingly lurking around every corner.

This city has been very good to Quentin Tarantino, one of the few bonafide superstar directors capable of drawing crowds to the theatre just with his own name. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his love letter to Los Angeles, a film so occupied with its location that it barely felt the need for much of a narrative. Tarantino is too busy soaking in the nostalgia of an era gone by to concern his script with the notion of a plot.

Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a washed-up Western actor who failed to make the transition from TV to film, back in a day when that distinction mattered. He can’t get his stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) much work, instead keeping him employed as his personal assistant. The two are a good fit for each other, mostly getting by on the laurels of their glory days.

Dalton and Booth’s occasionally separate narratives make up two-thirds of the narrative, mostly leaving Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) with the remainder. Tate isn’t given much to work with, a seemingly intentional calculation. Robbie plays the young starlet with a kind of energy that makes her role in the film clear without a ton of dialogue.

The film blends fact and fiction quite effectively, constantly challenging the audience’s perception of reality. Dalton appears to largely be a composite of Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds, with some nodes of Clint Eastwood. Tate, a real-life victim of the Manson family’s killing spree, is also very much a figure of Tarantino’s fantasy. This isn’t a biopic, even though plenty of Hollywood icons show up throughout the film.

Tarantino soaks in each scene in his film with a runtime of two hours and forty minutes. There are plenty of sequences that don’t really play any larger narrative purpose, contemplative moments that are perhaps a bit too self-indulgent. The cinematography is beautiful, showcasing the beautiful sets that faithfully recreate the era.

Perpetually present is the sense that Dalton serves as a commentary on the current state of Hollywood. Tarantino, DiCaprio, and Pitt are in many ways A-list stars of a different era, before superheroes and franchises took over the box office. To his credit, Tarantino doesn’t write Dalton as particularly sympathetic, a man too consumed with his own fading stardom to see the immense fortunes he’s been afforded.

Putting aside the notion that this film is little more than an aging director’s nostalgia-powered vanity project, it’s a lot of fun to watch. Tarantino is clearly having a blast, as are most of its star-studded cast. At many points, the film feels like watching a rich man perform karaoke at his fiftieth birthday party, prolonging a fun event with unnecessary interludes. It is a well-crafted movie that is too long for its own good, the kind of narrative that doesn’t seem poised to stand up to repeat viewing. Tarantino showcases the skills he’s refined over the years, along with a lack of restraint that longevity often affords.