21 Years: Richard Linklater (2014)

Richard Linklater might be one of those directors who stands out most among his peers. If you look at the movies he has made there really doesn’t seem to be a strong connection between them. He made his debut with Slacker, a movie which had a structure unlike any other movie at the time and was new to audiences. It didn’t have a real plot and Linklater showed life within a specific community. Looking at his career he has made experimental films (Waking Life/A Scanner Darkly), films the play with time (Before trilogy/Boyhood), comedies (School of Rock, Bad News Bears) and dramas (The Newton Boys, Bernie). Linklater is a director who has managed to inspire many others (for example Kevin Smith/Duplass brothers), but who was also at the start of some very successful careers (including Matthew McConaughey). 21 Years: Richard Linklater is a documentary which tries to give an overview of Linklaters impressive body of work

Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Keanu Reeves, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Billy Bob Thornton are just a few of the actors who talk about their experiences making movies with Linklater. From the first McConaughey’s “Alright, alright, alright” up to Delpy and Hawke expressing the fun they had making the “Before” movies. The stories are supported by fragments of the movies themselves and animations of the people who are being interviewed.

It is a joy to see how the actors involved are talking enthusiastically about Linklater and can’t do nothing but give him high praise. The result of the documentary though is that at the end you don’t feel you’ve learnt a lot of new things about him. Linklater himself isn’t interviewed and the story jumps all through his filmography, lacking any sense of progression/direction. The documentary Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater gives its viewers a better insight into the psyche of this praised director.