Boyhood

Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a remarkable film, remarkable in its unremarkableness. It shows us a twelve-year span in the characters’ lives, from the time when Mason (Ellar Coltrane) grows from seven to when he’s an eighteen-year-old college freshman. It’s the portrait of a stepfamily much like so many families today, divorced parents amicably agreeing to share responsibilities and visitation time, with minor ups and down, some disappointments and some successes, filled with moments that are the stepping stones of our lives, moving from here to there. Mason’s new college friend says to him at the end of the film, “They keep telling us we’re supposed to seize the moment,” and he says to her, “The moments seize us. We're always in a moment.” Carpe diem in reverse. We watch these people in twelve annual episodes, all the characters aging just as the actors age, all episodes seamlessly blended so that we’re only aware of the passage of time by tiny changes—different hair styles, newer cars, increasing wrinkles around the eyes of Mason and Sam’s mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette), barely noticeable physical growth of Mason and his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater). It’s an amazing trip we take with them. One of the funniest scenes takes place in a fast-food restaurant, when their father (Ethan Hawke) decides to have a sex talk with his daughter and she can’t believe he’s telling her about condoms and safe sex. It’s a conversation many parents have had with their children, just as awkward for us as for them. I may have to see it again, just to watch how Linklater managed to pull it off. He may want to shoot a sequel called Manhood, but that’s pretty unlikely inasmuch as the actors probably wouldn’t want to go through another twelve years with each other. If he did, though, I’d certainly go see it.