Review: Boyhood

Growing up …..

 

Title:                                     Boyhood

Certificate:                           15

Director:                               Richard Linklater

Major Players:                     Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane

Out Of Five:                         4.5

 

Sometimes films take an eternity to make it to the screen.  This year’s Mandela:Long Walk To Freedom was famously 17 years in the making because of the usual round of script changes and juggling actors’ and directors’ diaries.  But Boyhood director Richard Linklater has deliberately taken his time.  12 years to be exact.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise.  This, after all, is the director behind the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy, with their nine year gaps.  They traced a couple’s relationship with the same actors (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) playing the central roles.  Boyhood takes the idea one stage further, re-uniting the same cast and crew every year to document the development of a boy from the age of six to 18.

At the start of the film, Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is an inquisitive but dreamy six year old.  He lives with his older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) and his mother (Patricia Arquette).  His parents are separated, but his easy-going father (Ethan Hawke) is a regular visitor, taking the children out for treats.  As he grows, Mason lives through his mother’s other relationships, including a disastrous marriage to an alcoholic, sees his dad settle down and become a father all over again and watches his sister go off to college.  And then it’s his turn to graduate and leave home.

No hugely dramatic moments, no heroes and no villains. This is simply a portrait of a life – not just Mason’s, but the entire family – with its ups, downs and middling moments.  And it’s all the more fascinating for that, as we literally watch the characters mature before our very eyes, rather than visibly changing because of different actors.

There’s only character who comes close to being a villain and that’s the mother’s second husband, with his drink problems.  Our reservations about some of the others change as we watch them develop.  Mason’s dad, for instance, seems a feckless dreamer at the outset, but he tries – sometimes too hard – to build a good relationship with his kids.  Over time, we see him re-build his life with his girlfriend, new son and a regular job – “life’s expensive,” he observes, ruefully – and we realise that the responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood first time round came too early for him.  Like it does for a lot of other people.

Childhood, it would seem, is no place for the young – and, as if it wasn’t difficult enough, the adults don’t seem especially good at coping with it either, even though they’ve been there themselves.  They all seem to fall into the trap of expecting children to immediately transform into mini adults once they’re out of nappies.  And, try as they might to be understanding and tolerant, those expectations always seep through.

Boyhood is an enchanting, and possibly unique, piece of cinema, full of the subtleties and details that characterise Linklater’s films.  Although there’s one boy at the heart of it, it’s actually about families, and that makes it a movie for everybody – and its universal appeal is what makes it special.  While it has an obvious and immediate appeal to parents, it equally chimes with those who don’t have children: we’ve all been children and can all see something of our life experience on the screen.

The acting is universally excellent, so natural that you feel totally comfortable in the company of the main characters.  Patricia Arquette is especially affecting when Mason is about to leave for college.  Be warned, though: at a smidge under three hours, it’s a long film.  But it never, ever feels like it.  What you’re watching is something so beautifully and carefully crafted that it appears effortless and just washes over you.

By the end of the film, Mason is 18, has just started college, made some friends and seems to be settling in.  But is it the end?  Or just the start?  You’re left wanting more – and, unusually, hoping for a follow up.

 

Boyhood opens at cinemas around the UK on Friday, 11 July.