I understand there are a lot of people out there who adore this movie and I don't want to offend anyone, but did anyone else find this film completely contrived?

The first half of the movie was heartbreaking and beautiful and then the second half just nose dived into drama for the sake of drama. He leaves his aunt's home to live in a cave because she was annoyed he didn't do the dishes? I understand she wasn't particularly nice to him but it wasn't like he was being a model nephew either. His uncle and cousin were both working while he just sat around. Yes, I know the argument that work was extremely difficult to find in this time, but I will only judge the movie for what it presents and will not read into it anything that wasn't presented to me. A simple scene of him being declined work from local stores would suffice to take this message home. And then he starts thieving instead of finding honest work? again, one scene showing him being declined work would be enough. But the most outrageous thing of all was that all this time, while his sister was dying and he was thieving, they had money in a bank account! money that was never withdrawn for no reason at all. Again, you can imply that there were difficulties with the bank and identification or some sort of other legal issue, but this was never presented. Maybe one can argue that he was saving it for a rainy day and only wanted to use it in extreme circumstances. But his sister was dying, is that not extreme enough?