Enter: Boyhood. In 2002, Linklater cast a 6 year old boy, Ellar Coltrane (which is a pretty awesome name, btw) as Mason, a boy growing up with a single mom and his sister in Texas, in a film that was to be shot in short segments over the next 12 years until Mason was 18 years old. Rather than a documentary, this was going to be a prolonged narrative that would follow Mason, and with him the other actors cast in the film, over the next 12 years and tell a story that's at once deeply personal and somehow universal in an almost spiritual way.
The Good: First, screw good, pretty much everything about this film is great. This film blurs the line between documentary and narrative pretty seamlessly, and rather than punctuate life with highlights and "big" moments the way works of fiction are want to do, the film allows its narrative to meander through Mason's life like a lazy river. Friends, family members, girlfriends, houses, schools and moments come and go, and we're shown the mundane, the everyday, the stuff that makes life worth living through the eyes of a small boy who is becoming a man before our very eyes. Life's big moments (parents getting married, moving to a new town, etc.) happen in the background and aren't the focus, along with major geo-political and world events (the Iraq War, the election of Barack Obama, the housing crisis, etc.), all of which pass without commentary they way they would in a child's life. Their effects resonate, but for Mason and his family, the focus remains deeply personal and focused on the here and now. This gives the film a timeless and a universal impact. Even if you didn't grow up in Texas in a single parent home, you were a kid, in school, who did _____. You drank with your friends. You got your first car. You talked about girls. (or boys) This universality, for me, made me feel at once small and insignificant, because YOUR shit is kind of everyone's shit, after all, and also part of a greater whole. Everyone involved should be commended for how cohesive everything feels. Despite the fact that it was filmed in snippets over a 12 year span, this is a recognizably cohesive narrative, and that combination of documentary-style devotion to its subjects and a cohesive narrative makes this a wholly unique achievement in the history of film. Having never seen Ellar Coltrane in anything else, I can't say how much of himself he's bringing to Mason and how much of Mason comes from the page, but he's a sensitive, likable, charming individual and Mason's quiet likability as the audience's cipher really draws you in to the film. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke are great as well, and as the film progresses and they age into their new status quo, their character's interactions with Mason progress as well in an organic and natural way... which makes the parent-child relationship really shine through in a way that I don't believe I've ever seen on film before. Lorelei Linklater, the director's daughter, plays Mason's sister, and despite not looking like her on-screen "parents" or "brother" the way that Mason does, she undergoes a similar and equally powerful transformation of her own. Even if this film isn't going for the BIG cry or the BIG resolution in the way that the trailer would have you believe or a traditional movie typically would, it's just as powerful, and more affecting than just about any work of fiction I've ever encountered.
The Bad: there isn't much, if anything that's not to like here. If I had one criticism, it would be a lack of development of supporting characters. I get that 12 years is a long commitment, I do. But the narrative feels sparse at times because it focuses on our primary subjects at the expense of the world around them.
In all, though, this is quite possibly the greatest film I've ever seen. It's definitely the most powerful. Despite being 3 hours long, I was rapt throughout, and the fact that this thing successfully worked despite EVERYTHING that could have gone wrong is an achievement in and of itself. Even if you aren't a boy growing up in Texas, and I've never even been to Texas, there's something universal and timeless about Mason and his family. If the task of fiction is, as I've heard, to comment on the human condition, then we have an undeniable masterpiece here. Technically brilliant, incredibly touching, and with a refreshing sense of universality and awe, Boyhood kind of grabs you and never lets go. Is it my favorite movie ever? Probably not. But it just might be the best movie I've ever seen.
10.
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