4 Epic-coming-of-age-stories out of 4
Watching Boyhood affected me on a deep and strangely personal level. There are many films that are emotionally powerful, but there are few that made me relieve portions of my childhood, or reminded me of the times of my youth. Boyhood, then, is perhaps the first movie to ever make me want to talk about myself more than talk about its writing or production. However, this is partly because, other than the much-advertised fact that the film was shot over 12 years, there is little in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood that isn’t derivative or unoriginal.
The basic premise – observing a boy live his life over the course 12 years – is a common one in the coming-of-age genre. That his parents are divorced and his life is shaped through the actions of his guardians is no original theme either. In short, Boyhood is a remarkably simple film that cinematically offers very little to its viewers other than a cavalcade of pop culture notes spanning the past decade. However, the film’s truth strength lies in the way Linklater captures American culture in a way that truly represents what many children – boys in particular, of course – experienced as they grew up in the early to current 2000s.
Written and direct by Linklater, Boyhood stars Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, and Lorelei Linklater as Mason, Olivia, and Samantha. Occasionally entering their lives for brief moments of time is Ethan Hawke, as father and ex-husband, Mason Sr. Over the course of 12 years, we see these four characters shift through time, allowing life and circumstance to dictate the course of their personal, academic, political, and professional lives. As Mason Jr., Coltrane grows on-screen. As he experiences heartbreak, personal loss, and the lack of a stable father figure, his acting feels natural and free of the nonessentials often plaguing child actors.
Linklater’s film succeeds because it sheds the unnecessary moments often found in other similar stories. Instead of dwelling on individual details, or raising the argument that our lives are determined by the small moments affecting the large, Linklater argues that our lives are made of a series of moments – small and large. Linklater seems to argue that, in life, everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Instead, everything just happens.
The years pass and Olivia succeeds professionally, but struggles personally. Linklater argues that her poor romantic choices are not derivative of an underlying weakness, but simply from bad luck. In turn, as Mason Sr. attempts to bridge the gap between himself and his children, Linklater avoids writing the traditional absentee-father character. These people feel like people precisely because their emotions, actions, and choices seem real and natural.
Boyhood is an exercise in restraint, and it is a better film because of its simple shots, consistent colour palette, and no-frills direction. Especially striking is the manner in which Linklater’s film organically evolves as a stylistic time-capsule, capturing hallmark cinematic tropes from 2002 to the present. A change-of-setting shot early on features a transition-by-car from one city to another; scoring the scene is Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun.” The scene is reminiscent of every scene change from early 2000s’ low-to-mid-budget comedy-dramas.
However, as time slowly edges forward – and real-life history shows that Linklater evolved as a director – so too does the film. Linklater’s independent-film roots begin to grey and his scenes take on a more stylistically mature tone – shots begin to feel more like something screened at Sundance and Telluride than something shown on the television.
Ultimately, all of Boyhood serves as a time-capsule of sorts. Young Mason Jr. watches Dragon Ball Z while Samantha prefers Sailor Moon. The children grow, and Mason plays Halo 2 on an Xbox console. We see the children play with a 20Q toy, and Soulja Boy’s terrible classic “Crank That” fills the screen. Mason Sr. discusses voting for anyone other than Bush in 2004, and, in 2008, he enlists his children into spreading Obama signs across neighbourhoods. Boyhood affected me personally because, as a boy growing up in the 2000s, I could immediately relate to Mason Jr.
Hemingway argued that big words don’t mean big emotions. With the simple, yet profound, Boyhood, Linklater proves that simple cinema does not mean weak emotional resonance.