Boyhood movie review (2014) | Little White Lies

Boy­hood

09 Jul 2014 / Released: 11 Jul 2014

A child crouched on the ground alongside a wooden fence, playing with toys.
A child crouched on the ground alongside a wooden fence, playing with toys.
4

Anticipation.

A Richard Linklater passion project which has long been bubbling in the backdrop.

5

Enjoyment.

Wistful, nostalgic and judged to perfection.

5

In Retrospect.

Could reveal itself as Linklater’s defining cinematic statement. One we’ll be watching 12 years down the line.

Ellar Coltrane grows up in pub­lic as the cen­tral, glo­ri­ous spec­ta­cle in Richard Lin­klater’s masterpiece.

Near­ly half of Richard Linklater’s 17 fea­tures have been shot pri­mar­i­ly in Texas, from the faux-grog­gy min­i­mal­ist road trip of 1988’s It’s Impos­si­ble to Learn to Plow by Read­ing Books to 2011’s Bernie, a micro-spe­cif­ic por­trait of small-town east Texas con­tex­tu­alised by an illus­trat­ed lec­ture on the five states” with­in the state.

Lin­klater hasn’t released a movie shot in his adopt­ed home base of Austin since 2004, where the to-be-Roto­scoped source footage for A Scan­ner Dark­ly was filmed. Boy­hood, in that sense, marks a very per­son­al home­com­ing. Pro­duc­tion on the film took place between 2002 to 2013, begin­ning just as Lin­klater went main­stream (to everyone’s sat­is­fac­tion) with School of Rock, before con­tin­u­ing on through the most pro­fes­sion­al­ly frus­trat­ing peri­od of his career.

2005’s Bad News Bears remake effec­tive­ly ter­mi­nat­ed his Hol­ly­wood sojourn; a patch of luke­warm­ly received fol­low-ups cul­mi­nat­ed in 2008’s Me and Orson Welles, which took a for­mer­ly improb­a­ble year-plus to get an Amer­i­can release, Zac Efron affil­i­a­tion and all. Even a pre­sum­ably sure thing like a pro­posed spir­i­tu­al sequel” to Dazed and Con­fused (same vibe relo­cat­ed to a 1981 col­lege cam­pus dur­ing the first week of the fall semes­ter) couldn’t attract financ­ing. Return­ing more-or-less annu­al­ly to Boy­hood ensured con­tin­u­ous direc­to­r­i­al prac­tice, a chance to refine tech­nique despite an unjust­ly rough sec­ond act.

Urban cen­tre Hous­ton, state cap­i­tal Austin, the unpre­pos­sess­ing col­lege town of San Mar­cos and rite-of-pas­sage site Big Bend Nation­al Park are the main loca­tions for the growth of Mason (Ellar Coltrane), an ini­tial­ly unex­cep­tion­al sub­ur­ban mop­pet turned glow­ing­ly-tanned col­lege fresh­man. 35mm was cho­sen to ensure tech­ni­cal con­ti­nu­ity over the 12-year arc, and the ever-so-slight­ly height­ened colours and a sat­u­rat­ed gloss con­firm it. The unin­ter­rupt­ed visu­al con­ti­nu­ity mir­rors Mason’s readi­ness to intu­itive­ly under­stand and inher­it the world he grows into.

Linklater’s past attempts at heavy dra­ma have gen­er­al­ly been dead­ly (two mediocre play adap­ta­tions in 1996’s Sub­Ur­bia and 2001’s Tape, plus the Shirley MacLaine sequences in Bernie), shot with the pained resolve of some­one who would rather be film­ing any­thing else. Watch delet­ed scenes from Dazed and Con­fused and you’ll find a wise­ly excised argu­ment about the Viet­nam War; peri­od-appro­pri­ate win­dow dress­ing becomes shouty text in a sequence that’s both unnec­es­sar­i­ly lit­er­al and (unavoid­able pun unin­tend­ed) a total buzzkill.

Boy­hood also marks the first film since A Scan­ner Dark­ly in which Lin­klater has tack­led a semi-con­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive. It’s a sto­ry fraught with poten­tial­ly histri­on­ic pas­sages, and Lin­klater comes out a win­ner. The first hour pits Mason and mum, Olivia (Patri­cia Arquette), against new step­dad Bill (Mar­co Perel­la), grad­u­al­ly revealed as an über-macho, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly abu­sive drunk. Bill’s biggest offence isn’t his grad­ual edg­ing towards phys­i­cal vio­lence, but in forc­ing Mason to shave his locks (“now you won’t look like a girl”). This is the sec­tion of the film that has raised the most crit­i­cism, but Lin­klater has nev­er been more suc­cess­ful at sub­tly embed­ding poten­tial­ly heavy drama.

There’s a solid­ly prag­mat­ic rea­son for this dra­mat­ic strat­e­gy — Coltrane was sim­ply too young to car­ry an entire hour’s worth of screen time, and the grown-up dra­ma gives him some cov­er. It’s also a vital psy­cho­log­i­cal part of his upbring­ing, instill­ing a life­long aver­sion to all forms of self-right­eous bab­ble about how to be a man”. For his 16th birth­day, Mason must spend time with fam­i­ly mem­bers who give him his very first firearm and Bible: God-and-guns rur­al lib­er­tar­i­an piety in a nut­shell. Mason says thank you nice­ly and seems gen­uine­ly curi­ous about learn­ing to fire the rifle, pick­ing and choos­ing exact­ly which parts of his state’s her­itage are worth mak­ing his own. Part of Boyhood’s design is to be as grand­ly expan­sive as its title, but it’s also ground­ed by the localised specifics of grow­ing up in a state where hold-your-tongue tol­er­ance is a necessity.

Often dis­mis­sive­ly pegged as a mod­est” film­mak­er, Lin­klater hasn’t proven as con­gen­i­tal­ly aller­gic to overt tech­ni­cal ambi­tion or shout­ed con­fronta­tions as his ami­able image might attest. By virtue of premise and atten­dant scale (the abil­i­ty to leap a decade of mem­o­ry in under three hours, just long enough to trig­ger flash­backs when a loca­tion recurs), Boy­hood places Linklater’s deft con­trol into sharp­er relief more fre­quent­ly than usu­al. His com­par­a­tive­ly rare sig­na­ture show-off shot is a slow­ly main­tained walk-and-talk, pulling back­wards from two peo­ple as they amble for­ward, their lazy stride elim­i­nat­ing the need for cam­era stress. There’s a lengthy doozy in a San Mar­cos back alley: a sun­ny stroll between Mason and a girl nev­er seen before or after, ambi­ent weath­er plea­sure giv­en the same weight as the mild, admirably obdu­rate dra­ma of Mason’s ingrained aver­sion to any form of authority.

Lin­klater is not unaware of Big Dra­ma; he con­scious­ly pares away all but the most glanc­ing moments of pain. Sus­tained pas­sages with no mean­ing­ful out­side forces shape the action — non-pro­duc­tive pock­ets of time, free from the demands of work or stul­ti­fy­ing com­pa­ny — and allow peo­ple to stretch out into their most inter­est­ing dimen­sions, con­duct­ing bemused inter­ro­ga­tions of oth­ers or rant­i­ng about a per­son­al inter­est. Mason com­bines both arche­typ­al Lin­klater char­ac­ters, alter­nate­ly a seem­ing­ly pas­sive lis­ten­er and the one who holds court — his prophet­ic anti-smart­phone speech is a nat­ur­al to be snipped out of con­text and passed around the inter­net. His growth requires him to fig­ure out which mode is appro­pri­ate for his cur­rent audi­ence (and whether he cares).

Unsen­ti­men­tal com­pres­sion accel­er­ates time’s pass­ing every 20 min­utes. Mason’s voice changes and his skin increas­ing­ly glows, his phys­i­cal evo­lu­tion just one of the reg­u­lar tem­po­ral mark­ers. Sis­ter Saman­tha (Lorelei Lin­klater, the director’s daugh­ter) is equal­ly fas­ci­nat­ing, glimpsed in fond­ly exas­per­at­ed co-exis­tence; semi-present bio­log­i­cal dad Ethan Hawke is his usu­al Dori­an Gray self and sin­gle mum Patri­cia Arquette can bare­ly keep up with them all. This is the worst day of my life,” she cries when Mason leaves for col­lege: the first time tears have cropped up and the first instance of heavy dra­ma since Bill’s exit, more effec­tive for its unex­pect­ed intru­sion. All this time she’s been work­ing, pay­ing bills, nav­i­gat­ing a series of unsat­is­fac­to­ry part­ners and try­ing not to snap at her kids. Mean­while, her son grew up large­ly out of sight, a sharp, sud­den realisation.

Movies are unique­ly suit­ed for intense­ly reg­is­ter­ing seem­ing­ly non-trans­for­ma­tive moments which assume nos­tal­gic grav­i­ty when revis­it­ed years lat­er. The low-key default humor­ous­ness of Linklater’s work and the bab­bling plu­ral­i­ty of voic­es — not, admit­ted­ly, all equal­ly com­pelling — has giv­en way to a tight­ly plot­ted upbring­ing that is pre­dictably devoid of real threat, the bet­ter to con­cen­trate with­out wor­ry on time’s passage.

No impor­tant char­ac­ters die, and after step­dad Bill exits the pic­ture, it’s delight­ful­ly smooth sail­ing. In the non-finale’s sweet con­ces­sion to broad com­e­dy, Mason arrives at col­lege, gets baked and heads back to Big Bend, reclaim­ing the site of father-son vaca­tions as a start­ing space for col­lege par­ty­ing with his new room­mate and starter friends: life goes vacant­ly and pleas­ant­ly on. Most loca­tions in the film are vis­it­ed casu­al­ly, and only once. Return­ing to Big Bend years lat­er is a rare moment of stability.

It may be even more fun to watch Boy­hood a few decades hence just to see how the peri­od mark­ers have aged: whether the sound­track choic­es (songs cho­sen for their pop­u­lar­i­ty, not a cura­to­r­i­al taste indi­ca­tor) have per­se­vered as radio stan­dards or fad­ed away, whether the inher­ent dat­ed­ness of all fash­ions has become vis­i­ble yet. For now, it simul­ta­ne­ous­ly func­tions as a com­ing-of-age com­e­dy, moth­er-son dra­ma and nuanced cross-sec­tion of Texas life as the state shifts from red to blue, main­tain­ing urgency and a steady stream of per­for­mance sur­pris­es (and punch­lines). Its cumu­la­tive impact, trig­gered by Olivia’s brief freak-out and Mason’s nec­es­sar­i­ly tough-mind­ed/­cal­lous mov­ing on with his incon­se­quen­tial life, is an embed­ded shard whose sad­ness cuts deep.

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