2014 | Dir. Richard Linklater | 166 Minutes
"We're all just winging it, you know? The good news is you're feeling stuff. And you've got to hold on to that."
From age six to eighteen, Mason Evans, Jr. is shaped by various influences while trying to discover an identity of his own and establish some semblance of direction in his ever-changing life. With Boyhood director Richard Linklater accomplished a monumental technical feat, filming this picture over the course of twelve years with the same central cast members aging for real as the film rolls along.
The success of the film rests on the shoulders of young Ellar Coltrane as Mason, who not only visibly ages but also develops as an actor from scene to scene. Watching Coltrane grow and mature alongside his character Mason, joined by Linklater's daughter Lorelei as Mason's sister, is a captivating experience. Patricia Arquette is the unsung hero of the picture playing Mason's mother who begins as a lost young woman, moving from one abusive alcoholic husband to another, and ends the film as a slightly world-weary college professor who hasn't lost any love for her children. Ethan Hawke plays Mason's estranged father who fights to stay close to his children, an immature aspiring musician who eventually becomes a grounded responsible man. Amusingly enough, from start to finish, both Arquette and Hawke visibly improve as actors as well.
The passage of time is mostly transparent, sometimes marked by various cultural and historically significant events (from violence erupting in Iraq to mark the start of George W. Bush's "war in terrorism" to the midnight release of the sixth Harry Potter novel to the 2012 presidential election), sometimes a period-appropriate soundtrack cue and sometimes just by the length of Mason's hair. Questions that Mason would ask his father, seeking guidance in life, grow in complexity as he ages, moving from questions about the existence of elves to whether or not there'd be a new Star Wars film after the prequels to the big question about the purpose of life after his first major breakup.
Boyhood is an incredible cinematic accomplishment, developed naturally and edited flawlessly to build a narrative that is remarkably lucid and at times profound, a very personal story told on a time scale that feels truly epic.
FRAGMENTS
- Young Mason was apparently a big fan of Dragon Ball Z, with a bedset featuring the Z Warriors, posters, even watching an episode is an early scene
- I'm reminded of Michael Adpted's Up docmentary in which the filmmaker revisits fourteen British men and women from different walks of life every seven years to see where life has taken them - and of course, we also have the Harry Potter films
