Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) is a young man living in a small town in working-class Texas. He’s  a quiet boy, normally spending his days driving his pickup truck, attending school, playing sport and finding solace in one of three local institutions that become like home to him – a pool-hall run by the enigmatic but sympathetic Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson), a small diner where the proprietor Genevieve (Eileen Brennan) takes on a maternal role and offers some guidance to an individual who is assured and good-natured, but also seemingly without any direction, and the local cinema, which is where Sonny and his friends normally spend their evenings. Yet, life is changing in their small town – teenagers are flourishing into adults, and as a result have to contend with their own desires, as well as the looming dread that comes with realizing that they have to start thinking about their future. Various characters weave in and out of Sonny’s life – his best friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) is growing distant, which isn’t helped by the impending war, which is where every young man wants to prove himself. Sonny also finds himself falling victim to the burden of love, and caught between two women – the beautiful but superficial Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), who chases clout and is willing to do anything to get it, and Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), the repressed housewife who the protagonist forms a deeper connection with due to their shared existential strife – which only becomes more confusing for a young man who is struggling to find the space even within himself to grow, let alone to dedicate to another person who is also in search of validation and a cathartic release from a small-town existence that is simple, but extremely frustrating at the same time.

Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show is a film that has deservedly taken its place in the canon of great coming-of-age stories. Occurring towards the beginning of the New Hollywood movement, which the director helped define, this film is a beautiful and meditative story about change and the importance of understanding that staying stagnant has never helped anyone, but also that sometimes moving forward takes a lot more effort than most would realize – a sentiment that extends further than the working-class Americana that the film is built on. A complex film that never condescends or focuses too much on youthful idealism (a remarkable achievement for a piece centered almost entirely on a group of teenagers), but rather ventures off in the search for some deeper meaning, a sense of cohesion that helps these characters navigate a perilous and unfamiliar world that seems both exciting and terrifying to many of them. Like many of the films made around this time underneath this manifesto of a more realistic expression of the human condition, The Last Picture Show is a melancholic tribute to the past, but one that deftly avoids the cliche of overly-sentimental nostalgia, and leaps over the narrative pratfalls that normally tends to diminish these stories. Perhaps not the most riveting piece, its a slow and measured experiment that dives into the American heartland, and emerges as a poignant, complex drama that demonstrates a different side of growing up.

The Last Picture Show is an extremely simple film – Bogdanovich’s work normally tends to prioritize the stories over the style, which is especially true earlier in his career. This film served to be his first major work, insofar as it’s the one that drew attention to him as a filmmaker. Perhaps not reaching the astounding brilliance of his underseen debut, Targets, what he does here is impressive in its own way, especially because it took the daring decision to be different, and to take a more arid approach to a familiar set of ideas. This was certainly not the first coming-of-age story produced in Hollywood, and it was obviously not the last – but what makes this one so distinct is how it doesn’t opt for large narrative strokes or moments of exuberant vivacity, where the process of growing up was shown as something difficult but also exciting. The Last Picture Show is definitely very consistent insofar as it remains extraordinarily subtle from beginning to end. This could be seen as one of the film’s fundamental flaws – after all, there’s nothing particularly enthralling about watching a few people grow up and yearn to move out of their town, all the while struggling with their own personal issues. However, the director’s understanding of the intricacies of human behaviour, and the beautiful source material by Larry McMurtry (who also worked on the screenplay with Bogdanovich) allows us to see the lives of a few ordinary people in a way that is not only fascinating but emotionally resonant and deeply compelling.

The film doesn’t necessarily consist of a single narrative thread but rather constructed out of a series of small moments that all converge into a beautiful tapestry of an ordinary existence at a particular time, in a particular place. The Last Picture Show is mainly focused on the character of Sonny, but it really takes hold of a few different characters, showing their experiences – whether high school students looking towards their future, or the older generation hoping to recapture the past, we are introduced to a variety of individual perspectives that all eventually intersect, showing that while every story is unique, life is not isolated – we’re the product of our surroundings, and this film sometimes works the best when it isn’t solely grounded within the actual events it depicts, but rather when commenting on how life is just a series of moments – triumphs and tragedies that sculpt us as individuals. It doesn’t quite reach the metaphorical heights it seems to be aiming for, perhaps a result of its often limiting simplicity, but we can’t really criticize a film like this for taking on a more subdued approach. The Last Picture Show aligns itself less with the constructed melodramas that told similar stories in the past, and more with realist literature, where stories were simply just steadfast celebrations of life as it was, liberated from any furnishings or excess to propel the story forward. Life is interesting enough as it is, which seems to be the message this film seems to be intent on proving and that even the most common of situations can be seen as profoundly meaningful when empathy and genuine compassion motivate a story, rather than anything artificial.

Along with the very simple story, The Last Picture Show assembles an ensemble of performers – veterans and newcomers alike – to take on the roles that play pivotal parts in the construction of this astoundingly beautiful film. Bottoms is perfect for the role of Sonny, because despite being the de facto protagonist, he’s not a character that demands attention in the traditional way. He’s neither heroic nor dashing, and he doesn’t possess the charm normally exhibited in these kinds of characters, who are just effortlessly likeable people without any flaws, and who are on the path to success, even if it doesn’t appear that way. Sonny is just an ordinary young man struggling to find his place, and the realization that he can’t really remain under the radar for much longer forces him into a bit of an existential crisis. Jeff Bridges plays his best friend and demonstrates the rugged charm that would go on to make him one of the most beloved actors in the industry. His final moment is heartbreaking – but it’s evident that every character is given the chance to shatter the emotions of the viewer. The focus shifts between the ensemble, each one having an important role to play in the progression of the story, and while some may be given more attention than others (for example, Cybill Shepherd is given a character who is amongst the most uninteresting, but also one who the film focuses far too much time on), its in the smaller performances that make the most impact – Ben Johnson is remarkable as Sam, a man who has done his time in life, and is just living out the rest of his days, occupying a sweetly nostalgic space in his mind where the good old days bring him the comfort the modern world doesn’t. Cloris Leachman has the most tragic character, a trapped woman – stuck in a loveless marriage, restricted to a meaningless suburban life, and at a point where she can’t stand alongside the younger generation in the way she used to.

It seems only fitting that the film ends with her moment of clarity, and while it isn’t a performance that seems to be amounting to anything, it all manifests in an ending that is both harrowing and uplifting, where everything this film is saying about life, and its broad banalities and hidden beauties, converge into a sequence of pure emotional catharsis, not only for Ruth but for the audience as well. The film takes us on a journey into a small town that doesn’t harbour any particularly special qualities and resembles just any working-class locale that most of us would be familiar with in some way. Yet, Bogdanovich understands it is not quite as simple as just setting your film in a familiar location and hoping that the authenticity follows – rather, he crafts an intricate and emotionally-resonant story that is just as familiar as the town in which it takes place, but yet so profoundly moving, mainly because beneath the simplicity, the director has managed to capture the very essence of existence, which he slowly infuses into the film. There’s a growing tension pulsating throughout The Last Picture Show, one that is quite intangible at first, but slowly develops, creating a situation where these characters, regardless of where they are, or wherever they’re heading, have to reconcile the past with the present in the journey towards the future – yet it still narrowly avoids defaulting in saccharine sentimentality. It would’ve been so easy for The Last Picture Show to be a bundle of overwrought emotions and elaborate melodrama. Its insistence on rather trying to capture the uncertainty of youth in a way that was almost unsympathetic, but still very heartfelt and gentle. This is the precise reason why it is such a brilliant piece, and a film that has a sense of beautiful yearning, an understated nostalgia that remains relatively sedate, making The Last Picture Show a truly empathetic slice of realism that shows us that life, while sometimes banal, can be full of surprises that we can’t predict – so it’s better for us to seize the moment, especially our younger years, and cherish every part of it, before we miss it entirely.