Boyhood

Director: Richard Linklater
Screenplay: Richard Linklater
Producers: Richard Linklater, Jonathan Sehring, John Sloss, Cathleen Sutherland
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater
Year: 2014
Country: USA
BBFC Certification: 15
Duration: 165 mins

It’s so well-known now that Richard Linklater’s Boyhood was shot over twelve years that it almost seems pointless mentioning it at the beginning of any new review. But this initial feeling betrays the cynical tendency we have as consumers to quickly become bored with incredible things. It wasn’t long before the initial buzz around Boyhood began to give way in some quarters to claims that its unusual production was merely a gimmick and that the actual film didn’t live up to its audacious approach. This is nonsense, of course, but there was certainly a sense that when it came time for Boyhood to be considered for the Best Picture Oscar, viewers had started to move on from the sense of wonder that first greeted it, like late night revellers yawning and turning in after two minutes of a sunset. This allowed the more recently released Birdman to swoop in before its own superficial thrills started to wane. Ultimately, the tedious predictability of our repetitive acclaim-backlash model of criticism tends to only be a short-term irritation and films either prove their capacity for longevity or fade into the background. Certainly, Boyhood trumped Birdman in terms of continued acclaim but there is more to this fact than just their respective levels of quality examined in a vacuum. Now we’re almost a decade down the line from Boyhood’s initial release, it has matured beautifully into an invaluable document of an era from which we didn’t initially have quite enough distance to get a handle on.

To suggest that Linklater‘s process of shooting a couple of weeks’ worth of footage every year between 2002 and 2013 was a mere gimmick is ludicrous. Only a director with a high level of confidence in and dedication to their vision would dare attempt such a precarious undertaking. Linklater put certain precautions in place, such as asking Ethan Hawke to finish the film in the unlikely event of his own untimely death, but there were certain things that couldn’t be safeguarded against. A project like this is a lot to ask a six year old boy to commit to, and Linklater’s star Ellar Coltrane could easily have decided to walk away at any point, as the De Havilland Law prevented Linklater from being able to have his actors under a traditional contract. Amidst the possibilities of unexpected events, there were also numerous creative decisions to make throughout the process. Linklater had a basic storyline worked out but wisely kept the structure and events loosely defined in order to be able to react to the unpredictable changes in his actors. Other technical considerations may not immediately leap to the minds of viewers caught up in Boyhood’s remarkable flow, but the decision to shoot entirely on 35mm film, for instance, prevented the finished product from jarringly changing look every few years or so. Some directors might have leaned into this stylistic differentiation as a visual device but Linklater’s film shies away from such showiness, preferring instead an emotional focus who’s era-specific details never aim for empty nostalgia and never push their way to the forefront. A large amount of nostalgia relies on rose-tinted misremembrances but, since Boyhood’s contemporary references were made at the actual time they were in the public eye, they provide a satisfying documentary realism rather than a hokey air of pastiche.

It’s easy to get caught up in the elaborate production details when talking about Boyhood but that is to miss the heart of the film. While managing to see a planned twelve year project through to completion is a staggering achievement in any case, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as noteworthy had the resulting film not been so fantastic. There’s an incredible fluidity to the way Boyhood plays, eschewing devices like date captions, on which a lesser director may have fallen back. Time passes and people age, sometimes conspicuously and sometimes so subtly that it only hits you several scenes later. We see flashes of plot threads that then disappear as the year moves on. The absence of elaboration is not to say the occurrences didn’t have a lasting effect but we will have to infer what that was, since the events themselves have elapsed offscreen. There are dramatic peaks that are beautifully complimented by stretches of comparative uneventfulness. Linklater offers the most effective take on the slice-of-life narrative approach I’ve ever seen, except this is actually twelve slices of life, tossed into a bag together without separating napkins.

At first, the loose rhythms of Boyhood can be hard to get into but they become mesmerising as it goes on. The first time I watched Boyhood was at a very busy time of my life, when films were essentially crammed into the cracks of spare time I had available. Consequently, I didn’t connect with the film and was left underwhelmed. The next time I watched it I had a week off work, a fridge full of beer and the mindset and time to melt into the armchair and immerse myself in the experience. That’s when I fell in love with it. Pretentious as it may sound, Boyhood is a film you have to sort of live rather than just watch. That’s why finding the time to wallow in its near-three-hour runtime in one sitting is pretty much essential. Although I find every scene riveting in its own way, it is the cumulative nature of Boyhood that makes it so special. Had Linklater released each chunk as he shot it or created a 12 part mini-series, I don’t think it would’ve had half the impact, even if the content was identical. Seeing those twelve years elapse in one perfectly edited whole (courtesy of Linklater’s regular editor, Sandra Adair) is crucial to the experience.

The casting in Boyhood is perfect. Ellar Coltrane’s Mason is identified as the central focus by the title but the other characters are often given equal focus. Many commented as the time that the film could’ve easily been called Girlhood since Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter, is so brilliant as Mason’s older sister Samantha. But the older Linklater shows a shrewdness in making the far more passive character the film’s centre, allowing us to drift along at a leisurely pace and drink in all the details of a slowly unfolding life. Ethan Hawke, as the children’s intelligent but unreliable father, lights up the screen every time he puts in an appearance. This is a brilliantly rounded character, deeply flawed but hugely likeable, and displaying elements of good, bad and occasionally great parenting. For an example of the latter, see the terrific moment in which the young Mason asks his father, “Dad, there’s no real magic in the world, right? You know, like elves and stuff. People just made that up.” His father replies “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, what makes you think that elves are any more magical than something like a whale? You know what I mean? What if I told you a story about how underneath the ocean, there was this giant sea mammal that used sonar and sang songs and it was so big that its heart was the size of a car and you could crawl through the arteries? I mean, you’d think that was pretty magical, right?” With this extraordinary piece of dialogue, Mason’s father takes his child’s growing detachment from the notion of magic and turns it on its head, giving him back an example from the real world that is far more magical than the majority of fictional concepts human beings have created themselves. He teaches him not to take amazing things for granted just because they’re right in front of us. He teaches him that magic can be real but it is frequently misinterpreted, as we attempt to reach past the enchanting things we can actually touch to try and grab some intangible notion of something better. Of all the great moments in Boyhood, this quiet moment between a boy and his father bedding down for the night might be the one that has stuck with me the most.

While Hawke received acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his performance, the majority of the attention fell on Patricia Arquette, who’s turn as Mason and Samantha’s mother bagged Boyhood its sole Oscar win. Although she features heavily, Arquette’s performance is one of such subtlety that I missed what made it special the first time I saw it and was left bewildered at its reception. But second time around it all clicked immediately. I can only describe this performance as quietly brilliant. Arquette’s dedicated but wearied single mother is exceptionally real and unsentimental. She is inspiring without being perfect, loving without being sickly sweet, and so utterly human that when that wonderful final speech that probably played a big part in her Oscar win arrives it is utterly devastating without a hint of artificial manipulation. If that moment is the dramatic highlight, Arquette is perhaps even better in moments that initially pass you by. You can see her character trying to work out the best parenting decisions in the moment, sometimes letting her frustration supplant her instincts but usually showing a high level of empathy and an ability to find a measured and appropriate response. Her talk with the fifteen year old Mason when he comes home tipsy and smelling of cigarettes is a great example. She calls him on it and intends to have a talk the following day but she also clearly draws on her own teenage memories so that she doesn’t come down too hard on him and cannily postpones the conversation until he is in a fit state to take it in. Most movingly, there is a clear hint of amusement in her reaction, acknowledging a deeper understanding of the growing up process her children are going through than would’ve been evidenced in an angry “Oh my God, have you been drinking?!” moment of melodrama. This is something that Boyhood manages to avoid without sidestepping the situations themselves. It finds the realistic alternative to the sanctimonious PSA masquerading as drama.

Boyhood isn’t quite perfect. I’ve always found it odd that Linklater repeats the trope of a drunk stepfather, with two relationships ending very similarly for Mason’s mother. I’m not saying that this is necessarily an unbelievable or even wholly unlikely situation, but it does feel like a bit of a disservice to Arquette’s character with its queasy implication that she chooses a certain unsuitable type for herself. I would’ve liked to see a bit more variety in the storytelling there. There are also some later scenes of Mason and his girlfriend Sheena visiting Samantha at university in which the dialogue begins to feel more conspicuously scripted. Coltrane’s quieter performance in the early passages struggles to adapt to scenes with considerable chunks of dialogue and his scene partner for most of these moments, Zoe Graham, is not terribly convincing either. There’s still a sweetness to the scenes but it’s the one stretch where I can really see Linklater’s hand moving the pieces around. These are nitpicks though and it is almost a good thing that Boyhood is a flawed masterpiece because… well, so is life. Can I get away with that? I’m sufficiently moved in the aftermath of watching Boyhood to feel like I can sell that level of corn!

For all my talk of the importance of watching Boyhood in one sitting, I should probably admit at this point that I watched it over two nights this time. My intention was to find the time to watch it as a whole but my reason for not doing so is at least apt: this is my first viewing of Boyhood since becoming a father to a little boy myself. Don’t worry, this isn’t the point at which I tell you that you can’t understand Boyhood properly until you’re a parent! My own son is still half the age of Mason at the beginning of the film so I’ve yet to go through the parenting situations depicted here. But I remember enough of the experience of being that six year old boy myself and the subsequent bumpy road to young adulthood, so Boyhood works for me on that level. Becoming a parent just added a layer and I do feel that as my son gets older, watching him grow will make Boyhood resonate even more in its restrained but deeply affecting emotionality.

Boyhood is released by Arrow Video on 4K UHD and Limited Edition Blu-ray on 27 March 2023. Special features are as follows:

– Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
– Without Ambition, One Starts Nothing, a new featurette featuring American poet and critic Dan Chiasson in conversation with his son Louis Chiasson about their shared love and connection to the film
– In Search of Lost Time, a new visual essay by critic and film-maker Scout Tafoya
– Before and After Boyhood, a previously unheard interview with Richard Linklater by film critic Rob Stone, author of Walk, Don’t Run: The Cinema of Richard Linklater
– Richard Linklater at the BFI, director Richard Linklater discusses Boyhood and his whole career in this on stage appearance at the British Film Institute
– Theatrical trailer
– Image gallery
– Double-sided fold-out poster
– 60-page perfect-bound collector’s book featuring new writing on the film by film critic Ben Sachs and scholar Rob Stone, author of Walk, Don’t Run: The Cinema of Richard Linklater