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Posted by on Aug 24, 2014 in Blog, Movie Reviews | 0 comments

Movie Review: Boyhood

 

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Written and directed by Richard Linklater, the film shows the intimate lives of a struggling American family over a 12-year span, primarily through the eyes of Mason Evans, Jr.  

 

In 1964, the first segment of the highly-acclaimed “Up Series” was released in England.

Indisputably the most ambitious documentary project ever attempted, director Michael Apted filmed a dozen or so average people with vastly different backgrounds at various stages of their lives.  Every seven years, he returned with his cameras, applying a cinematic stethoscope which examined what had happened since the previous intrusion.  Call it a sort of voyeuristic check-up.

The latest edition of the “Up Series” — called “56 Up” — was released last year (airing on PBS in the U.S.).  It showed what remained of those dozen or so film subjects, all now at age 56.  Some of those lives we saw and envied years earlier are now a mess.  Others took time to blossom.  One supposes the prevailing theme throughout all this is — people change.  My review of this extraordinary film series can be read here:

“56 Up” — The Greatest Documentary Series of Our Time

Now, imagine a fictionalized film version of this same concept, applied to the childhood of a boy.  That’s the basis of the equally ambitious new film “Boyhood,” which is receiving rave reviews and is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Written and directed by Richard Linklater, the film shows the intimate lives of a struggling American family over a 12-year span, primarily through the eyes of Mason Evans, Jr.  The film begins when Mason is 6-years-old and ends shortly after he turns 18, the legal demarcation of adulthood.  Filming took place every two years over the lives of the actors involved, including Ellar Coltrane, who plays Mason.  What’s most remarkable about this film is no one connected to the production had any idea how Mason (and his sister — played by Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter) would turn out in real life.  Fortunately for the highly-original film project, both young actors carry the film from scene to scene with undeniable authenticity and natural charisma which consistently invokes our empathy.

One imagines that in Mason and his sister, many of us will see ourselves.  We will see our own childhoods, racing by in a frenzy of cultural fads, new friends, changing schools, bad dates, lifestyle curiosities, and typical adolescent challenges that mark the most awkward phases of most of our lives.  As in real life, the onscreen journey provides a mix of joy, humor, disappointment, anger, and pain.  Echoing the lyrics of John Lennon, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making others plans.”

Mason’s parents are played magnificently by veteran actors Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, each trying their best in their own way to raise their children right.  The young couple, who clearly got married and had children too early, is already divorced when the film opens.  Over the next 12 years, not only do the children change before our eyes, but the parents also mature themselves and develop (particularly Hawke, who seems like a loser, but isn’t), eventually forming their own self-identities.  In short, these are all people we are connected to, and root for.

Unfortunately, the mother played by Arquette makes more bad life choices along the way.  There are incidents of alcoholism, physical and emotional abuse, illegal drug use, and other typical symptoms associated with everyday struggle and pain.  Yet, none of the common phases these characters go through becoming melodramatic or a distraction from the real mission, which is to somehow get through it all intact, and perhaps even happy.  For most families, life’s daily drama is a seemingly endless stage act of packed lunches and dental appointments.  This is an entirely believable life’s journey that will hit close to home for many viewers.  In some of the scenes, I saw flashbacks of my own childhood — particularly as they related to being raised by a single mother.  I suspect, so will many of you.

The film also provides the best depiction I’ve ever seen in a film of growing up in Texas, which is often contorted beyond recognition in most other movies by ridiculous Hollywood stereotypes.  This is no surprise, given the writer and director actually spent his entire childhood in the Lone Star State, in many of the same spots where actual filming took place (39 days of filming were interspersed over a dozen years).  Propelled by a new job, another marriage, or a dead-end divorce, the family flutters around the state — from Houston to San Marcos to Austin, and then points beyond.  Set against the backdrop of real-life events which occurred between 2001 and 2013, these lives unfold in actual neighborhoods amid the headlines of the day.  This contextual canvass not only creates a much-needed timeline but also adds to what almost seems like a real American family in a perpetual state of uncertainty, much like the beyond-their-control world around them.

“Boyhood” runs considerably longer than the average film, clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes.  While there are plenty of everyday ho-hum scenes interspersed throughout (such is life), the extended run time is necessary to fully explore and depict a boy’s entire childhood.  However, be warned.  This isn’t a movie for those with short attention spans.  There are no car chases or spaceships.  It won’t be for everyone.

But for those of us who enjoy films of stark intimacy, which take extra time for characters to develop, the longer-than-usual duration is well worth our journey.  In this story, many will see our own childhoods.  In these characters, many will see their family and friends.  In these lives, we see ourselves.

ellarmaster

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