Review of Boyhood (1951) by Victoria D — 28 Jul 2015

I will go against the majority here and say this is one of the worst films I have ever seen. The 12 year production time is impressive in its own right but it is what makes the undeveloped plot/characters/dialogue that much more confounding - there was a heck of a lot of time to get this right!

Agreeably, Patricia Arquette's maternal performance was phenomenal, unfortunately she was not in the movie enough to save it.

My biggest challenge here is that, after watching a 3 hour film about a boy growing up, I have no idea what kind of man Mason became? This kid made no difficult choices, good or bad, he didn't ponder or question or challenge the world like normal adolescents would. Integrity? Selfishness? Compassion? Intelligence? Morality? Who knows? Even when there was turmoil he just existed among it - it's as though everyone involved in this project has completely forgotten their formative years. The film would have been more realistic and entertaining had Ellar Coltrane documented his own 'boyhood' for 12 years. My one star is for Arquette.