Richard Linklater wrote this....

Dig deeper.

Yes, there's no standard story, which is exactly the point. One of the characters even discusses this aspect of filmmaking, which is most likely Linklater's alter-ego (as many other characters are too, I sense). Look at Before Trilogy - this is how Linklater works, he doesn't like the "standard" narrative. That's one.

Second, what kind of meaning are you looking for? What meaning do other movies have? Are you talking about a "theme"? If it's the theme you're concerned about, then there is one - philosophical pondering on different aspects of life. If anything, it has more "meaning" than 99% of other movies made today. There's a lot of substance, but it's all philosophy. To understand the "reason" for this movie, you need to understand how philosophy works.

It may not be entertaining for a lot of people, but if you're an analytical person who loves to think about life, Richard Linklater's thoughts on many different subjects expressed through this film are very interesting. It's not as "deep" as many people make it out to be, and the "dream" state, and animation are there just to dress up the film; they're unnecessary, but it would've been even less appealing if we would only have Richard sitting there and talking philosophy to us for 2 hours. One aspect that the animation does help is expression through the visual - again, not necessary but helps to immerse yourself more into the idea.

This is a good film, but it's not for everybody. And I don't mean it in a pretentious way; I mean that you have to enjoy listening to philosophy and be interested in other peoples' thoughts on what they think the meaning of life is, and so on. I enjoyed it. 8/10

How on earth else could he wrote such mind numbing garbage?