Boyhood

‘Boyhood’ is the story of Mason and his family, and follows them from the summer of 2002 until the autumn of 2013. At the beginning of the film, Mason is in 1st grade. His parents are divorced, and he hasn’t seen his father in a few years, as he’s been working in Alaska. His father (Mason Sr., played by Ethan Hawke) has come back to Texas and wants to get to know his kids again. Mason’s sister, Samantha, is two years older than he, and is always ready to goad and torture him if she can get away with it. Their mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) is a loving, though imperfect mother. She reads to them at bedtime, gets them out the door to school in the morning, and does her best to support them, going to college in order to teach. Mason Sr. is a loving, carefree type of weekend dad, taking the kids bowling, buying them gifts, trying to get to know them.

The magic of the film is that it was actually filmed over this same period. The actors came together and worked on scripts annually, and filmed for a few days each year. The director, Richard Linklater, wanted to tell the story of the parent/child relationship, the story of a boy growing up, but filming over more than a decade meant that there were many unknowns in the culture and the world around them, events and changes that would be incorporated into his framework as they went along.

So we have this clever conceit, that the story is filmed over 11 or 12 years, that the actors are growing up and growing older in front of our eyes. That’s enough to make the movie interesting, but it’s not enough to make it good. What makes it good is the writing that is involved, the beautiful cinematography, and the honest, wonderful performances of everyone involved. I don’t think the movie had many missteps.

As with other Linklater films, there isn’t a huge plot. It’s not the story of a boy battling cancer or saving the world or falling in love. It’s the story of a family, and a glimpse at some of the events that occur in the boy’s life over this time span. Watching the boy grow up and be about the same age that Maya was those same years…I don’t know, it touched me and reminded me of how quickly time flies right on by.

It’s a film that has me thinking about it afterward, one that I truly enjoyed. I think I’d like to go see it again, actually. It’s that well done.

Ted and I both really enjoyed the movie, and we decided to do his and hers blog posts. Find his here!