Boyhood

In his review of the six hour Italian epicThe Best of Youth, Roger Ebert commented that “the two hour limit on most films makes them short stories. The Best of Youth is a novel.”  “When you hear that it is six hours long,” he tells the reader, “reflect that it is therefore also six hours deep.” Boyhood is not nearly six hours long, and yet it’s running time doesn't begin to scratch its surface. While it runs shy of three hours long, Boyhood remains, simultaneously, twelve years deep, old and wise.

Around the year 2002, director Richard Linklater, known by that point for his romantic one-off Before Sunrise, decided that he would make a movie that would span twelve years and track the development of a kid from age six into young adulthood. He would film during the summers in his home state of Texas, and he would then wait and see where the project took him, advancing without a solid script. Miraculously, his dream came true when the film was financed by IFC Films, and he began to shoot later that year. Since 2002, Linklater’s School of Rock and Bad News Bears remake helped sharpen his comic sensibilities and allowed him to learn to work with kids. Meanwhile, the homegrown Bernie, based on a local newspaper’s story, solidified Linklater’s standing as a proud Texan filmmaker. More timed passed. Before Sunrise gave way to Before Sunset which evolved to include Before Midnight to form a masterful trilogy on the passage time, the meaning of love and the beauties and hardships of marriage. As Linklater matured as an artist, he chipped away at Boyhood and applied his knowledge towards filming and editing it, until finally, earlier this year, he unveiled it to the public. The result? One of the most audacious, breathtaking and humbling artistic achievements I’ve ever witnessed, and one unlikely to be equalled in stature any time soon.  

The first shot of Boyhood is of the open blue sky. In the second shot, we see Mason (Ellar Coltrane), a six year old boy, looking up at this sky, dreaming. His parents have gotten divorced, which we later find out, so perhaps he's contemplating the fact. It is the first major event that will shape who he will become. The movie follows an odd structure that emphasizes the seemingly insignificant moments of everyday life. Mason grows a bit older with each subsequent scene. He learns to ride a bike, and he begins to question the existence of fairies and magic, nothing momentous. His mom remarries (twice) and so does his dad, but the weddings are never shown. Presumably Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter), have birthdays, though they are also bypassed. These weddings and birthdays, major events people normally use as markers in their lives, are less important than the effects they have. Linklater is not interested in the cataclysmic events that determine our lives. Those are boring, since they make up the subject of every other film out there. Instead, Linklater implicitly points towards these events by showing their results. 

One of the most common criticisms issued against the film is that Mason “doesn't do anything,” but that he simply “reacts to things." That is correct, in most respects. But, why is this such a bad thing? It’s challenging and decidedly untraditional, but Boyhood, from its contemplative beginning onwards, announces itself as different. Mason is not intended to be anything like a typical protagonist. Listening to “Hero” (by Family of the Year), the song Mason plays as he drives away to college, reveals Linklater’s intention concerning Mason. With the song’s lyrics and a couple of visual gestures -- like Mason stumbling upon the song on the radio but then cranking up the volume -- Linklater tells us everything we need to know about Mason: “Let me go / I don’t wanna be your hero / I don’t wanna to be a big man / I just want to fight with everyone else… Everyone deserves a chance to / Walk with everyone else.” Mason refuses to be special. He will not conform to what audiences expect of him, to the ideals of a traditional movie hero, and it’s exhilarating. He is passive and observant (a defiantly unheroic characteristic), traits established in the first shot of the movie, traits that later evolve into a love for photography. At the same time, Mason is not spineless, and he possesses a constant moral core.  He works hard in both his day job at a restaurant and his hobby as photographer. He stands up to his drunk stepfathers at home, and he has sense enough not only for when to listen to the adults in his life, but also for when to discard their advice, which he learns to do when he finds out that they are mostly just as screwed up as he is. In other words, Mason is unheroic, but not an antihero. He’s more complicated than either category. He’s human. 

As various scenes roll by, we become deeply aware of the passage of time. Even though it happens imperceptibly from one scene to the next, the cumulative effect is outstanding: Mason learns to drink. Unrelated, he buys a car. He also gets his heart broken once or twice. All of a sudden, the kid who was six at the start of the film, under three hours ago, drives off to college! For the most part, both characters and actors end up gracefully aging into their roles. Patricia Arquette as Olivia, Mason’s mom, gives what may be the most impressive performance of the film by expertly balancing a character constantly teetering on the edge of failure and despair. Olivia is always a mess, but at the same time she raises both of her kids admirably, and she incessantly improves herself by getting a degree in psychology and then working up to a teaching position at a university. Her arduous journey ends up being the most satisfying of all, not least because she’s the character whose odds of succeeding were mostly stacked against her. Mason Sr, played by the great Ethan Hawke, begins as the most irritating character (not too many will be forgiving towards his stoner/absentee dad), but he slowly transforms from a heedless free-spirit into the husky, wise voice of reason -- a change solidified by Hawke’s changing, coarsening voice which was greatly altered by the actor’s smoking habit -- until he eventually becomes the father Mason never had growing up. “We’re all just winging it,” he counsels his distressed son. A nugget of wisdom that Boyhood offers through him: No one has their lives figured out, but they’re all just “winging it,” doing their best to lead good lives. 

Part of the unexpected tragedy of Boyhood comes from scenes in which characters look back on their lives and, using the perspective gained through time, examine their past mistakes. Mason Sr, then, after remarrying and becoming an active father, regrets being the absentee dad to his oldest kids, while Olivia wishes she had broken free from the several drunk boyfriends who curbed her potential and made Mason into a bit of an anti-authoritative rebel. Although it is lovely to witness these two people mature and find a measure of stability over time, it becomes hard not to wonder. Boyhood raises the question of what it would have been like had they known better before they irrevocably altered their lives forever. Olivia says something to that effect, that she would have eagerly embraced Mason Sr if he had just gotten his act together a little earlier in life. The bitterness of looking back, of “what ifs,” has rarely stung so hard. 

Mason, too, even though he’s not old enough for past mistakes to really haunt him yet, also learns a lot from his countless experiences chronicled in the movie, experiences which alter him imperceptibly and quietly shape who he becomes. Midway through the film, for example, the previously insignificant moment in which Mason’s stepfather gives him a camera becomes a major event, since it provides Mason a focus that will propel him towards college, where he eventually goes to study photography. After that, he’s on his own as the movie simply and quietly concludes without a grand finale or any unifying statement. Life goes on. 

There is something incredibly moving, wonderful, and painful in seeing a child grow up onscreen that can't easily be put into words. Even if the execution of this incredible concept had been botched, Boyhood would still have been worthy of admiration, but Linklater somehow pulled it off, in large part because Ellar Coltrane matured into a such a charming and captivating figure. He was good as the dreamy eyed boy seen in the film's poster, but he grows into his role as the film goes on, becoming more subtle, intelligent, and articulate as time passes and he changes with his character. I can't imagine all the ways this project must have affected Coltrane's life, but I'm grateful he stuck through it all. His performance is a gift, which, like Boyhood itself, I had never seen before and probably will not see again in quite some time, if at all.

Verdict- 4/4

Boyhood (2014) 2h 46min. R.