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Boyhood is the culmination of a twelve year experiment by director Richard Linklater. The experiment goes like this: take two young actors and follow them through their adolescence, crafting a story around them as they go. Those two children in this instance are Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater (Richard’s daughter), who began the film as child actors in 2002, and ended it as professional young-adults in 2013. It’s an amazing experience watching not only these two young actors, but the entire cast, grow on screen before your eyes, and Richard Linklater has crafted a simple but beautiful story to guide us along.
Ellar Coltrane plays Mason, a young boy who we first meet kicking around the backyard of his small suburban home. His best friend beside him, Mason engages in the simple day-to-day rituals of childhood: ride your bike around town, argue with your sister, be late for dinner. Mason and his older sister Samantha (Linklater) live with their mother (Patricia Arquette), who is struggling to makes ends meet. Their father (Ethan Hawke) is out of the picture at the beginning, but soon swoops in like an elemental force, driving a sports car and taking the kids on Saturday afternoon adventures.
Linklater’s film is almost without story in the conventional sense. In fact it makes you very aware of your built-in expectation while watching a film. This is as close to an accurate depiction of life as you’ve seen on the big screen, but because of that there are no tentpole action sequences, no clearly defined plot twists or expository monologues. Like life, the drama is in the small moments. The moments that seem superficial at the time, but take on great importance with each passing year.
This isn’t to say that nothing happens. Like in every life there are defining moments, but they are the moments that so many of us share: the loss of a best friend, moving to a new city, the bully at school, the first love, and the discovery of a passion. It’s such an affecting film because it’s a shared experience, and it’s an experience that will mean something so different to each viewer. As a young man who’s college years are not yet a distant memory, watching Mason leave home and strive to find himself in the world is almost like rubbing a fresh wound. For a parent, who has seen their child in the same circumstances, it must be a completely different experience. It’s nostalgic and sad and hopeful and human.
In that way it’s rather strange we haven’t seen something like this before. There is the fantastic “Up” series in Britain, but that takes a documentary approach. Linklater instead creates a fictional world. This allows us to lose ourselves, become part of the family and experience life over the years alongside his characters. Soon it’s not Mason’s life onscreen, but yours, and you’re watching those years pass all over again. It’s about the constant plod of time, and the amazing meaning it’s steady pace gives each moment of our shared experience.
And it’s not just about Mason. While his journey is the centre of the film, its conclusion only serves to show how many beginnings and endings we attach to life. Mason’s leaving for college is just one of the countless landmarks that make up our lives. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke’s characters go through similar milestones. Arquette transitions from harried low-income mom with a soft-spot for abusive boozers, to a strong professor at peace with her independence. Hawke gets to have a little more fun as the sports car driving man-boy turned minivan driving WASP. But both of these — and all the characters — serve to show how truly long and varied life can be, and how many reincarnations each person can go through.
Fans of Linklater know that music plays a major role in his films, and the director’s rock and roll proclivities are on full display in Boyhood. At times in the film you’ll be so engrossed that the aging of the characters will happen without your knowledge. Luckily, Linklater has filled the soundtrack with signpost songs, marking the way and reminding us that we’ve actually lived through a few pretty good decades of music. Mega-hits like Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” and Coldplay’s “Yellow” exist beside strange cultural one-offs like Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad” and High School Musical’s “We’re All In This Together”. All of which are woven into the film’s world so that Britney Spears will simply be sung by Samantha to annoy Mason, or Wilco’s “Hate It Here” will be used by Ethan Hawke as a teaching tool on the car stereo. The ambitious music project apparently cost over $2 million to put together, but it’s money well-spent, and furthers blurs the line between the film’s world and ours.
Boyhood is a once-in-a-lifetime film. It’s something that will never be duplicated. For a director who has already given us beloved depictions of youth (Dazed and Confused, Slacker), a trilogy of films on the nature of love (Before Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight) and now an inspired and unique coming-of-age story, it’s hard to imagine what’s next. At just 54 Richard Linklater has said he has many more ideas up his sleeve, but it’s hard not to look at Boyhood has a career high already. Where can you possibly go when you’ve made a film that so perfectly captures the unpredictability and beauty of life? Whatever he does, here’s hoping Linklater lives to a ripe old age, and continues to show us how lucky we are to be living along with him.
Reviewed by Evan Arppe.
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