There is always a window.
Someone stands beside it, not quite in the room, not quite outside of it either. The light hits just right. The world hums in the background, distant and indifferent. And there it is, that familiar ache wrapped in something almost beautiful. Coming-of-age films have mastered this language. They take loneliness, dress it in golden hour, and hand it back to us like a souvenir we did not realise we were collecting.
Because growing up is not loud in the ways we were promised. It is not always a montage of milestones or a perfectly timed soundtrack swelling behind every decision. Sometimes it is just you, sat on your bedroom floor at 2 a.m., wondering when everything started to feel both too much and not enough at the same time. And cinema, in its quiet understanding, meets us there.
The aestheticisation of being alone.
Loneliness, in these films, is never just emptiness. It is curated. It is thoughtful. It lingers in long walks down tree-lined streets, headphones pressed firmly against ears like armour. It lives in handwritten letters, in unsent messages, in the spaces between conversations that almost happened.
Think of the way characters wander. Not aimlessly, but as if searching for something unnamed. The camera follows them gently, almost respectfully, as though it understands that solitude is sacred. Films like Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower do not treat loneliness as a problem to be solved. They treat it as a season to be experienced.
And we, sitting on our beds or scrolling through yet another endless feed, recognise it instantly. Because we have been there. Because we are there.
There is something deeply comforting about seeing loneliness framed as something soft instead of something shameful. It tells us that we are not broken for feeling disconnected. That maybe, just maybe, this quiet ache is part of the blueprint.
Soft melancholy as a personality trait.
Our generation does not just feel things. We curate them.
Sadness is no longer something to hide. It is something we aestheticise, package, and sometimes even perform. Playlists titled “it is raining and I am thinking about everything” sit next to carefully edited photo dumps of blurry streetlights and half-finished coffees. We have turned melancholy into a mood board.
And coming-of-age films? They walked so we could run.
They taught us that there is beauty in longing. That staring out of car windows while the world blurs past can feel like a revelation. That not belonging anywhere can, in some strange way, become an identity in itself.
But here is the truth we do not always say out loud. There is a fine line between romanticising loneliness and getting comfortable in it. Between finding poetry in solitude and using it as a shield.
Films rarely show what happens when the music stops. When the walk ends. When the room feels a bit too quiet for a bit too long.
Growing up quietly, loudly, and all at once.
Coming-of-age stories love the big moments. The confessions. The breakdowns. The scenes where everything spills over because it cannot be contained anymore. But what they capture even more brilliantly are the quiet shifts.
The subtle realisations.
The almosts.
Growing up is not a single, cinematic turning point. It is a series of tiny awakenings that accumulate until one day you wake up and realise you are not who you used to be. It is learning how to sit with yourself. It is understanding that loneliness does not always mean you are alone. It is accepting that some chapters will end without closure, and that is okay.
Our generation exists in this strange duality. We are louder than ever, constantly sharing, posting, documenting. And yet, we are also deeply, quietly alone in ways that are hard to articulate.
Maybe that is why these films feel like home. They do not demand that we fix ourselves. They simply sit beside us and say, “I see you.”
The comfort and the caution behind coming-of-age films.
There is a reason we return to these stories. They validate something we often struggle to name. They make loneliness feel like a rite of passage rather than a personal failure.
But there is also a gentle warning tucked between the frames.
Loneliness is not meant to be permanent. It is not a destination. It is a moment. A chapter. A bridge between who you were and who you are becoming.
The danger lies in mistaking the aesthetic for the experience. In believing that the beauty of solitude is enough to sustain you. It is not.
You are allowed to romanticise your life a little. To find magic in the mundane. To stand by the window and let yourself feel everything all at once.
Just do not forget to step outside of it too. Because the story does not end at the window.
It begins when you finally open it.
For more such articles, visit Her Campus at MUJ. And if you’re also the main character in your own coming-of-age film, find me at Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.