GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

thegreatmiroslav Exploitation of people on so many levels. First, "Oh, look at the quaint Maine smalltownians! Their life is so much different and more backwards than our urban lives where we can visit a Starbucks on every street corner." But that's been done before already, especially by presidential candidates, and I guess isn't that bad.Second, the boy's mother seems naive in actually going along with this entire exercise in the first place, but she was probably heavily manipulated by people who were out to "promote their art" and "make money".Third and most importantly, two disabled children (The 15-year-old main character and his 16-year-old "girlfriend" of one day) have had moments of their awkward adolescence preserved for eternity. I know that when I was 15 a heck of an entertaining (Entertaining in a "that strange kid is so cute and observational" sort of way) movie could've been made about me, which would permanently harm mine and my entire family's reputation and personal lives...If I were rating my opinion of the filmmakers' morals in making this in the first place, I'd give it a 1. The 3 is because I sat through the whole thing and didn't vomit or walk away from the theatre, so, like Mein Kampf or some other work out there which was created with intentions I disagree with, it still has artistic merit.

james-d-neill Without making any arbitrary comparisons or dropping names (check previous review).This documentary provides thoughtful insight into an unusual and interesting life. Only a cynic would not be charmed by Billy , he is innocent, candid and bright. If only there were more 15 year olds like Billy. The only issues I would have with the film is that it only documents a short time-span in Billy's life and perhaps ends a bit abruptly. Also, I can imagine that the presence of the camera sometimes inhibited how people really would've really acted towards Billy. I don't think that the step-dad of the girl Billy fancied would have reacted so politely to the karate-kit clad boy naming his favourite slasher flicks off-camera.

Boyo-2 Billy is not that different from the rest of the world who happen to also be fifteen years old. He has an active fantasy life, he wants a girlfriend, he wants to know he has a place in the world, somewhere. He is fortunate enough to have an extremely supportive and loving mother who says that they are 'best friends' and the evidence of that is clear, once you see how they relate to one another. His life is not that fascinating but whose is at that age. There are moments of extreme boredom and many of happiness, too. Billy become interested in a girl who works at a local diner whose name is Heather. She does not have much to say, or maybe she just does not have that much to say while she's on camera. Not everyone in the world is completely at ease under those circumstances..I know I wouldn't be. But Billy seems to be, and he tries to charm Heather and at first it works and then it kind of doesn't. They break up and he is not too happy, but he pushes on. The best moment in the movie is when he asks her out, off-camera, and then gets a round of applause from some guys who happen to be hanging out near the diner. Billy is an interesting guy. I'm three times his age, plus some, and I can relate to much of what he feels. I wouldn't mind knowing what happens to him next. 8/10.

aluxatrne Hypnotic and simple, this low tech gem is a genre busting documentary that achieves non-fictionally what virtually all of cinema has attempted fictionally: get the boy a soul. Boys in film, from Elliot in ET to the title character in Pixote to Porky's to The Shining's Danny are archetypes searching past Mom and Dad for a little individuality through some form of psychic mayhem. The capstone (tombstone) is the dead Haley Joel Osmet in Sixth Sense. Look carefully, culture uses these kids as rites-of-passage stand-ins, and they endure almost obscene amounts of fear and pain to ascend. News media showcases these boys in real life mostly as hooligans with guns: we reflect on troubled youth as a result of careful CNN headwashing in the aftermath of Columbine and Virginia Tech. Billy is the first documentary film I've ever seen that exhibits a narrative interface with a boy who is clearly from this archetype closet. Billy's polarizing, somewhat fearless and game for any self exploration. In the wrong hands he's a loose cannon, but here he reflects, jokes, espouses and in the lynch-pin moment, gathers the courage to ask a girl out and as we watch the exploration of first love, we realize even as we know this love is momentary, that he's done it, he can never run back to a blank world of just heavy metal and violence. Two women left their beautiful mark on Billy, one was the girl he fell for the other is the director. Truffaut (that made Small Change) and Spielberg wish they had made this.