The film follows Gary King, a man who is struggling with addiction, as he tries to recapture the "Good old days." He tries this by meeting up with old friends and trying to get everyone back together for a night of drinking in their hometown.
This film explores what growing and changing as a person is like. Especially from our teenage years. And it gives us a picture of what being stuck in the past can look like through our protagonist. It looks strange, cringey, and irritating.
When they do go back out, everyone is uncomfortable for a little while, because it all feels so foreign to them. They do reminisce the good times for a bit. But the night gets stranger and stranger as it goes on as aliens/robots/blanks are introduced.
Watching this film this time around, I felt that them going back to their hometown is a metaphor for revisiting our past. Just like them, remembering our past can feel so strange and foreign to us because of how much we have changed since then. And I feel that the aliens/robots/blanks are a metaphor for our past coming back to haunt us, and having to fight our past and move on from it.
At the end of the film, Gary King is offered a younger version of himself to live for him in his place, he says no and destroys it, thus destroying his past and finally moving on and growing up.
Whenever your recollect your past, and you regret some things you might have said or done or cringe at it, it's a good thing! It means you've grown as a person, and you're not that way anymore, and you're that much wiser.
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