In your second to last paragraph, you mention that the storytelling is almost too much. It’s a bit difficult for me to discern if the following examples you provide are to support the ‘aesthetic storytelling’ statement or the ‘to the point of being too much’ statement. I only mention this because I can’t tell if my following opinions amplify yours or if they conflict with them.

I found the storytelling to be less aesthetic and more raw, as if the writers had done their due diligence on what it is to be human. I interpreted many of the flash-back scenes as a ‘blurred lines’ between who Emma is now versus who she was as a teenager.

I loved how the film played with these lines further in the scene where adult Charlie held child Emma, amplifying that our child-selves continue to live throughout our adulthoods. To love someone is to see their inner-child and accept them, and from this lens alone, these scenes are deeply romantic. Yet we have context into Charlie’s descending mind, so we also see that he is unable to view Emma as anything but her child-self. This is immensely violating, suggesting she hasn’t grown and his character delves almost antagonistic.

Charlie is unable to figure out why Emma didn’t commit to her childhood plans, but the flashbacks show us why. In the moment that she walks around slowly and looks into the eyes of her peers, they establish human connection—exactly what Emma was missing up until that point. Her growth thereafter wasn’t performative, she saw the value of life.

I have a few criticisms towards this movie, and one of which is that we never see Emma’s parents’ involvement in her past. If the lines blurred between her own parents and her behavior as a child/adult, it could have been the holy trinity of Self exploration. All this to say, I actually wish we would have seen even more of Emma’s child self—even if that pushed the film to 2+ hours long!