I remember surfing the cable channels one night in the early 2010s when I came across a quaint little movie about an aspiring writer and his attempts to overcome family adversity and escape from the mundane life he felt destined to live. The film was Carl Bessai’s coming-of-age Cole. I remember liking this movie so much that I tried diligently year after year to find a way to add it to my DVD collection. Not only did the task feel impossible, I couldn’t even find a way to rewatch it. It wasn’t available on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Most of the other common streaming services had yet to be established. As my goal is to own the DVD of my top ten favorite movies of each year, I was determined to find this missing piece to complete my 2009 collection. When I randomly found it on Amazon Prime in 2023, I wasted no time renting it. It turns out I would have been better served not seeing the film a second time. Not only has it not aged well, Cole is not nearly as good as I remembered it.