Boyhood

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. “Boyhood” is the most genuine movie you’ll see in a long time. It’s not really a story as much as it is an experience. This nearly three-hour movie was shot over twelve years and follows Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a six-year-old boy who grows up. I know that sounds strange so let me expand on that. If you’re an adult and you had to list all of the most important events that happened to you until you began considering yourself an adult, what would you have on that list? Not necessarily big events, like the fall of the Berlin Wall. You would have personal moments, things that meant something for you and that ended up shaping you into the person you became today. They might be happy memories, they might be things you wish you could forget and in between you would have moments that you would remember, but you wouldn’t know why. Was it the smell of the grass that day? Or the fact that it felt like déjà vu? The fact that as that moment happened, a new idea dawned upon you? For Mason, it’s things like the first time he moved out of his childhood home with his mother (Patricia Arquette) and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater) and had to paint over the pencil markings on the door frames that catalogued him and his sister growing up, the first time he met the man that his mother would marry when he was 8, the first time he had beer or the first real breakup he lived through. The film is not about a big story, it’s a small, personal and intimate voyage through those years when you’re old enough to start understanding the world around you but you’re not considered an adult yet so you’re not really able to do anything about what you see. Your question then, is probably: why should I see this? It just sounds like a bunch of home movies, and I can watch those at my house. “Boyhood” is not just a bunch of home movies strung together though. It’s a personal, honest journey through the life of a boy. Remember that this is not a documentary; it is a monumental art project twelve years in the making. When was the last time you hear of someone, anyone working on a project for that length of time? Keep in mind as well that it isn’t a single person working on this project. The director and the actors as well spent years intermittently shooting this film. People always make fun of bad old-age makeup in films. You’ve seen it before, where all they do is add a scruffy beard and some white streaks into someone’s hair to make them look older. How many times have you laughed at bad casting, where you cannot believe for a second that this little kid they have on-screen for the pre-credit sequence turns into the star they have cast as the lead. That’s because you want something genuine. You might not realize it but you’re craving to see a film like “Boyhood” where you not only get to see someone grow up, for real, but you also get to see their personality evolve through the years and you get to see what is probably the most important years of someone’s life condensed into 165 minutes. You get to see it all. You see the cute little kid go through difficult stages, the awkward pre-teen years where he tries to be rebellious but doesn’t quite know how to, the more mature teenage years where his true identity is beginning to manifest itself and finally the day where he truly becomes a man. It’s not only about Mason though. You also get to see, in snippets, the same thing happen to every character in this movie. One of the best examples is his father. When you are first introduced to Ethan Hawke’s character, you don’t really like him. He’s been off in Alaska doing who knows what when he should have been a part of his children’s lives. As the years pass and he buckles down, you see him turn into the father he’s always wanted to be. He settles down, gets rid of his boyhood frivolities and turns into a real grown-up. It’s a completely believable and honest transformation because it does take a long time. Despite what some Hollywood productions would have you swallow, it takes a while for someone to mature. It’s even more difficult when they’ve been set in their boyish ways. Here you see people that are kind of bratty or even unlikeable turn into good people that you’re happy to call your friend. Sometimes you get the opposite effect too. Some of the people that seem nice at first go down a dark path and turn into the kind of people Mason is glad to leave behind and never see again. The movie really feels like a long insightful evening spent with someone you’ve known for years. Every scene in the film isn’t necessarily big, but it’s a rite of passage, a memory that sticks with Mason and that he will never forget. That’s what memory is like. You don’t necessarily remember all of the little details that led to your first kiss, or the first time you drove a car, but you would remember that instant right after where you found yourself in a really embarrassing situation or you realized a profound and crushing truth. The film is filled with moments of enlightenment, joy and laughs, but also some dark and tense moments. It’s just like real life and that’s the strength of “Boyhood”: it feels exactly like real life does. Now I know some people are going to say either that the praises this film has been receiving are only because of the technical aspect of it. I say sure, some of that is true, but let me put this in perspective. This film isn’t your typical Hollywood movie, it could have been a total disaster if five years into it Ethan Hawke had died, or (Ellar Coltrane) had developed a really crippling drug habit and wasn’t able to make it on-set anymore. It would have been years’ worth of work down the drain. This is a tremendous gamble that paid off. If that doesn’t sell you on the idea, how about this exaggerated point: Let’s say you walked out of a movie that just looked monumentally good and was entertaining, something on the scale of “Avengers” and you learned that they made the movie not for $100 million, but $5 million dollars. It would blow your mind. You would be running up and down the streets telling everyone what a tremendous achievement those people did with what is a lot of money for a regular person, but pennies for a big Hollywood production. The achievement that is the movie and the movie itself are one and the same. A lot of love and hard work was put into this film and it shows. I’ll admit that there are some small flaws in the film. I didn’t notice them, but someone pointed out to me a scene where some teenagers aren’t quite the greatest actors or some technical blunders with the sound. Do those few instances, which must not make up more than 15 minutes’ worth of a 3 hour film really bring it down a star? No, they don’t. Not when the film is as powerful an experience as it is. Let me break it down for you. You literally see this kid grow up from just about the age where he begins to become independent, being able to go to school and such... all the way until he graduates high school and begins looking forward to college. People witness this happening maybe once in a lifetime if they have a kid, but it’s such a gradual process that you don’t really think about how big of a change has happened in those twelve years. What would you be willing to do to get that experience one more time? This movie is a perfect condensed version of this experience. It’s just long enough that you get lost in the running time. You don’t see the end coming because life is like that. You’re just entertained by one little moment at a time and the next thing you know, a whole year has gone by and it’s your son’s birthday again. You could have sworn he was just turning seven last week! Sometimes that’s sad, sometimes moments like that are funny. Then, it hits you. You’ve seen this little guy grow up and through mainly his own merits, he’s made it out ok and is now ready to move on. When he does, where will that leave you? Will you ever see him again? Mason isn’t even aware of your presence and yet you’ve witnessed his most intimate moments. You’ve been there the whole time watching him grow and you’ve fallen in love with him like you have a son. Yeah there might be some times where you’ll grow antsy and get a little sick of just watching him do his thing, but you’ll wish it would have never ended by the time the credits start rolling. It really is more than a film, it’s the equivalent of living a completely different life within the comfort of a movie theatre seat. “Boyhood” had a tremendous emotional impact on this viewer right here. I didn’t really know how to feel afterwards. Was I happy because it was over and I saw the cumulative efforts of everyone involved finally pay off, or was I upset that it was over and that I might never see these people and this family again, ever? If you have kids, this will be an even greater emotional experience, it will really make you rethink a lot of what you have been doing and what your plans for the future are. Even if you don’t have kids, it’s a powerful experience because it shows you what you’ve been missing, what you could be experiencing. On the technical achievement that “Boyhood” is alone I have to recommend it, but the movie is more than a gimmick. It’s a slice of life that is personal, honest and quite powerful. (Theatrical version on the big screen, September 18, 2014)