#229: Boyhood

Release Date: July 11th, 2014

Format: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray

Written by: Richard Linklater

Directed by: Richard Linklater

4 Stars

Shot over the course of 12 years, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a grand achievement. 

The film starts when our protagonist, Mason (Ellar Coltraine), is a 6-year old boy who lives with his mom, Olivia (Patricia Arquette), and his older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) in a small Texas town. Mason’s parents are divorced, and while Olivia does everything she can to provide for her kids, including work and going back to school to get her degree, Mason’s father, Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke), isn’t a steady presence in his kids’ lives. Sure, he loves the heck out of them in his own way, taking them to baseball games and driving them around in his vintage GTO on weekends here and there, but Olivia thinks he could do more.

As the film unfolds, we see Olivia get married and divorced twice more, and how those failed marriages impart feelings of helplessness and confusion on the young boy. We see him bounce around to different homes. We see him experience bullying, friendship, love, and heartbreak during the long process of adolescent self-discovery. 

The thesis of the film is explicit: people talk about seizing the moment, but really life is much more about the moments and how they seize us. 

For example, Olivia instructs a young Mason to paint over the height marks on the wall for him and his sister so she can get her cleaning deposit back. Isn’t that a tremendously sad and powerful sentiment? Or how about when Mason catches a fleeting glimpse of his best friend as the young family flees an abusive alcoholic stepfather? Mason doesn’t know it, but that glimpse will be the last time he ever sees him. How about when he’s forced to cut his hair and is so embarrassed that he doesn’t want to go to school, only to have a girl in first period pass him a note saying that she thinks his new haircut is “super kewl”? Or how about when a teenage Mason stays out all night with a girl in Austin, and kisses her at sunrise?   

I can’t understate the impact of this film emotionally. By spreading a reported 45 filming days over the course of those 12 years of production, Linklater gets the privilege of filming his actors aging organically, and more importantly, he gets to age organically as well. It gives the film an emotional authenticity that is unmistakable.

It’s a movie that I look forward to revisiting every so often as I age as well, meandering down this strange little stream we call life.