Sunday, September 14, 2014

Boyhood

Plot With Spoilers: Boyhood follows Mason (Ellar Coltrane) growing up from age 6 to age 18. It was made with the same actors over a 12 year period and everyone ages realistically. Mason lives with his mom (Patricia Arquette) and sees his divorced father (Ethan Hawke) on weekends. Little Mason fights with his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) and we watch their relationship evolve as they go to middle school and high school. Mason gets picked on in middle school, gets kissed in high school, gets high, plays video games, graduates high school, breaks up with his girlfriend, and goes to college.  As this happens the adults age as well, getting married, changing careers, and getting divorced.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Boyhood is an epic movie. I have never seen anything like it. I relived my own adolescence seeing these events flow past over 3.25 hours. The sense of time passing is real as the kids age, and the clothes, music and electronics change. 

This is a masterful movie with deserves a lot of attention.  There is a script and everyone is an actor -- it is not a documentary, but the events are typical events that would happen in an American family.

One of the fun parts is figuring out when the one year gaps occurred, and what happened during the intervening year. Did someone move or change jobs or get divorced or, or, or?

Boyhood gets away with its philosophical and psychological dialog because bad life choices are played out on the screen over and over again. In another movie, this much philosophy would be too preachy.

There are many wonderful scenes like the kids fighting in the back seat, the drunken step dad throwing dinnerware, and Samantha talking about contraception with her dad.

I liked the actors especially Patricia Arquette. Lorelei Linklater and Ellar Coltrane are great when they get past 15 or so. 

Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater. 

Directed by: Richard Linklater

Rating: 4 stars -- an epic achievement


More: The script was written as time passed, and the actors took part in writing the dialog.

Even More: It is wrong for Boyhood to get an R rating. Young teens should see this most. The drug use scenes have natural consequences.

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