Title should be 'how to make 90 minutes feel like an eternity'

I rarely critique a movie but this film bothered me too much. For one thing, I sincerely believe that the filmmaker(s) intentionally slowed the pace simply to test the patience of the audience (as some film makers are prone to do) but with no purpose towards communicating the story any better. I am very capable of watching cinema patiently but it bothers me when there is no point to the patience I'm being forced to exhibit.

For example, there is an entire scene where a man and his dog eat bowls of cereal while the lead character watches. Nothing is communicated to the audience. His dad is dead and he is sad. We got it. Cut this scene out and you lose absolutely NOTHING. Same can be said for the scene where he and the aforementioned man are driving around looking for the dog. Nothing of import is communicated. Same can be said for the many scenes involving the lead walking around from one place to the other or being transported on a new friend's bike. There is just way too much nothing happening in this movies. And no, I'm not one of those folks who needs explosions and gun fights. I just need whatever is being communicated to me to have some reasonable purpose.

I also believe that the movie was pretentious in the sense that it was apparently about a filmmaker essentially having a conversation with himself about something bad that has happened in his life. He undoubtedly understands everything that went on here but he makes no attempt to communicate that to the audience. The only way anyone gets this movie is if they utilized supplemental material (interviews, commentary by the filmmaker, etc.). That is no way to make a movie. I believe that in a communication the giver has 75-80% of the responsibility of making sure that a message is properly transported from 1 entity to the other. That includes filmmakers and this one failed.