Like Seinfeld, Boyhood is about nothing in particular. Yet its staggering charm is that it manages to be about the things that matter most. The Richard Linklater film accomplishes no small miracle in reflecting a slice of life that, as it stretches over 12 years, boasts an authentic take on existence itself. It is unique in that it plays with time and growth in a way that forces the viewer to get immersed in its series of singular moments of the present.
The feat? Take four actors, including a six-year-old boy and have them reassemble for a few days of filming every year. Watch them transform–obviously physically, but most importantly as characters and personalities. Of course in order for this to work it requires a crazy good script–no problem for the enormously talented Linklater, whose brilliant “Before” trilogy began exploring the concept of time as a fellow character in its films. Nine years apart, these films explored a relationship’s evolution. Boyhood raises the stakes by doing a similar thing in one film. Then it further heightens the drama by concentrating on the time of life when change is most striking and often painful.
As we follow Mason (Elgar Coltrane) from first grade until he goes off to college we feel we’re in his shoes experiencing massive transitions disguised as everyday vignettes. Luckily there are no forced, grandiose plot developments to add unnecessary Hollywood heft to the proceedings. Instead the details are presented spot-on, the little things flawlessly and understatedly presented. We’re also spared title cards or any narration. Typically, a nicely done edit is followed by a new scene where we just see Mason a bit older. The changes build incrementally to dramatic results. Michael Apted’s 7 Up documentary series that started with 7 Up and then went on to track a disparate group of people every seven years from age seven to 56 is in many ways a forerunner of Linklater’s challenging concept. Yet Boyhood makes the case that fiction when it is this fully realized can be even more compelling than fact.
Mason’s development is deftly framed by the development of his family members. A fine Patricia Arquette plays his mom, Olivia, a woman earnest, loving and hardworking yet also plagued with feelings of inadequacy and self doubt as she goes from one unworkable relationship to another. Linklater regular Ethan Hawke does a real nice job portraying Mason’s looser, more fun loving divorced dad–a man who becomes far more serious as the film develops. Linklater’s daughter Lorelei, as Mason’s sister, experiences a rather drastic character change of her own. A spark plug in the film’s early stages, she turns increasingly taciturn as she gets older. It seems no accident Linklater diminishes her screen time as the film proceeds.
Similar to Linklater’s uniquely part-narrative/part-documentary 2011 film, Bernie, the director’s native Texas also plays a key role in Boyhood. Scenes take place in Houston and Austin, capturing the state’s paradoxes. Mason receives from his grandfather a dual birthday gift of a Bible and a shotgun. He flows with it, learning to shoot the shotgun to please gramps.
A sadness lingers over the totality of the experience of Boyhood: life is ephemeral; youth evaporates; disappointments mount. Yet there is a similarity with the way Linklater ends things here to the last scene in Before Midnight where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, after intense fighting, reconcile not cheerily but calmly open-minded about the future. At the conclusion of Boyhood our hero, after an odyssey filled with unexpected and harrowing turns, seems to be looking forward to life’s next phase equally even-handedly but with a decidedly optimistic shading.