Director - Richard Linklater
Writer - Richard Linklater
Starring - Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater
Hello again!
It's fair to say it would be pretty hard to chose a film that is more different from Captain America 2 than Boyhood. Here we have the best reviewed film over the past ten years, and one that will surely have a large amount to say in this years awards season costing $4m compared to Captain America's colossal $170m.
It's rare for me to go and see the same film twice in two days in the cinema and that was for Mean Girls so clearly it takes something extra special for me to make that second trip. When I go to the cinema, or the theatre, I want to be transported, I hate the feeling of knowing I am watching a film. Boyhood managed to transport me like no other film ever has, it didn't seem like a film, more of a documentary of watching a boy turn into a man. Boyhood was filmed over a twelve year period, with Richard Linklater bringing the cast together for a few weeks every year to create footage that would eventually be brought together to form this 2 hour and 45 minute epic. I know for sure that for a lot of you that seems like a bloody long time for a film, and it is, but Boyhood makes you so present in the moment that you become disillusioned with time. "We are always in the moment" is the films ending line and pretty much sums up the whole experience in six words.
What makes this film so unique, is that anyone who watches it can associate to a character like never before. Whether you are a teenage boy remembering the first time you were passed a flirty note from a girl in class, as Mason is after his horrendous haircut. Or you are a mother watching your child leave home for good and bursting into tears at the thought (mine did just by watching this scene!). All these events occur in Boyhood and it means the film is personalised to each audience member in a different way. Every individual leaves with an image printed in their mind that they themselves have either experienced or watched another experience. For me it was the final image, which just gave me the widest smile possible ever, of Mason (the film's pivotal character played by Ellar Coltrane) sitting next to a girl he has only just met. They awkwardly smile and glance at each other knowing theres an instant connection but both slightly too embarrassed to say or do anything just yet. It is an image that still makes me smile thinking about it now, and there are plenty more. There is a fantastic cameo role from Richard Robichaux as Mason's boss who makes a hilarious impromptu speech at Mason's graduation party in front of his whole extended family, just one of his many moments that made me laugh out loud.
When people have spoken to me negatively about this film it was mainly with regard to the acting, particularly that of Coltrane. They have said that he was a bit dull, and it seemed liked Linklater had forced a certain character upon him. I could not disagree with this more. For one, Linklater himself has said that he wrote the script as it went along (in conjunction with the actors) and that he based the story around how Coltrane himself grew up. I quote Linklater "I am totally ready to adapt the story to whatever he is going through". That solves that second point. Now onto the acting, it may sound a bit wanky and pretentious but I don't think what we see in Boyhood is acting, especially in terms of Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater, who plays Masons older sister Samantha. They effectively grew up into this role, so for them I would guess that it is more like playing themselves rather than 'becoming' a character. For two more experience actors in Hawke and Arquette, who play Mason's parents; Mason snr and Olivia, they are acting, but in my eyes at such a high level that you see all the dynamics of a real family life, such as the hilariously awkward hug/kiss on cheek greeting between Olivia and Mason snr's new love interest Annie.
By watching a boy become a man in the space of 3 hours Boyhood really tells us how short life is and that you should embrace every moment it gives. Yes there are tough times in life, as Mason finds out with his series of monstrous step-fathers, but the tough times can be outweighed by love and passion. This is completely the case with Mason and his father. Their relationship was something that completely hit home for me. They brought all the elements of love, humour and anger that you would expect into a father-son bond that felt so real. It made me fantasise about how much I would have loved to had a chance to form such a bond with my own father and how I wish he could have seen the man I have become today. Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian film critic said of Boyhood, "There is hardly a better, or nobler thing a film can do than inspire love" and this is what Boyhood did to me. That is why I would like to dedicate this to my father Jan Kaplicky who passed away almost 6 years ago. He inspired many, as Boyhood surely will too.
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Josef
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