Boyhood

Clocking in at almost 3 hours, having no real story to speak of, and having a few too many endings, I could probably spend a lot of time discussing some of Boyhood's flaws: that it's a little unwieldy and unshapely, that it needs some trimming and some work, that it can be uneven. And yet, for all of those flaws, I can't deny that I absolutely loved Boyhood, and that those flaws in some ways make it the magnificent accomplishment that it is. Boyhood was filmed over the course of 12 years, with director Richard Linklater uniting his cast once or twice a year to film a few scenes each year and then editing the final product into a film that charts the growth of a young boy from age 6 to age 18 on screen. And around him, the rest of the cast ages along with him, as does the world around him; we see references to old Presidential campaigns and technology, TV shows and athletic heroes, songs that charted for a while and then vanished. But unlike so many nostalgia pieces, Boyhood never stoops to using dramatic irony; indeed, it can't, given that the scenes were filmed with no knowledge of what was to come in the years after they were filmed. That means that midnight book releases of Harry Potter books fit right alongside scenes of characters smoking in bowling alleys, and both seem like dispatches from a world we don't remember much anymore. And there's more aging than just the world and the characters; we're also watching Linklater evolve as a director, indulging in longer plot arcs before discarding them, incorporating more philosophical musings, taking longer takes, and simply going through the phases we watched him go through over the past 12 years. But while all of that is rich and compelling stuff, what really leaves you astonished about Boyhood is that it's rare to see the passage of time so richly depicted in a single film. The shapelessness that occasionally frustrates about Boyhood is also part of its greatness; rather than focusing on milestones or cultural moments, Boyhood is a life told in moments, from camping trips to tense family dinners to long drives with parents, and it allows its characters to develop offscreen, letting the actors and the audience fill in the gaps along the way. Boyhood eschews the typical coming of age tropes to simply give you slices of life that add up to a picture of a life, and as we watch Mason grow from a Dragon Ball Z watching 6-year-old to a long-haired photography student, we feel like we're watching someone we know grow up - and I'd be lying if I didn't say that wrecked me a bit as a parent of two young children who are growing up awfully fast. So, yes, Boyhood has some flaws. But it's also an incredible accomplishment, and many of those flaws also give it the rich, lived-in feel that it has as the characters come to life and we see their pains and their issues evolve over their lives. And the fact that Linklater guided this project over 12 years and came out with something as focused, thoughtful, and effective as he did is no small accomplishment. Is it a gimmick? If you're feeling uncharitable, sure. But it's also a way of telling a life story that no one's done before, and it's made something wholly remarkable, unique, and deeply moving in the process.

- Josh Mauthe

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