Boyhood (2014)

The passage of time is one of the facts of life. The moments we remember are only a fraction of what we experience in our lives. It sometimes is unreal to see how quickly we become older, but also to see how fast kids grow, learn and develop their own identity. With Boyhood director Richard Linklater has delivered a unique movie which shows the journey a boy takes into becoming an adult man, all over a period of three hours. He hasn’t done this in the way other directors approach this (by working with different actors for the various ages). He filmed this over a period of twelve years, working with the same actors.

Linklater already did something similar in the past in a slightly different way with his “Before” movies (which is my all-time favorite trilogy) in which every 9 years the viewer gets to take a look at the lives of lovers Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy). That same approach could have worked for this movie, but it would have resulted in something else. The movie mostly feels like a collage of memories. If you think back to your own childhood, the moments you remember might sometimes be shocking, but a lot of them aren’t that exciting at all. That’s what Boyhood offers to its viewer.

That unique way of approaching it results in something which hasn’t been done before in one movie. There are the “Up” documentaries which also show children growing up, but as they show them every seven years it is more comparable to the Before movies. Here it is fascinating to see the main character Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grow before your eyes (together with his family) and also seeing the older actors going through physical changes.

The movie received a lot of glowing review and as I am a big fan of Linklater’s work when it comes to the Before trilogy I had high expectations. Unfortunately the movie didn’t manage to meet them. This isn’t a movie which has a strong story. As stated before it is a collection of memories and even though Mason experiences some extreme things they don’t seem to affect him much. Besides his life we also see how the relationship between his divorced parents slowly changes as they each begin new relationships.

Boyhood captures the essence of growing up and shows the issues adults have to deal with. One of the final scenes with Patricia Arquette is very good in showing that. Still this movie to me felt too long and just couldn’t keep me captivated the whole time. Other reviewers might recognize a lot of themselves in the movie and therefore praise it, but I simply didn’t have such a strong connection.