Review of Boyhood (2014) by Boris K — 05 Feb 2016

I often review movies that have enormous amounts of hype surrounding them and quite often, they do not live up to it. For me, Boyhood was not just as good as most people said it is, it may have been even better. In fact, it may have been one of the best movies I've ever seen. Seriously! I was very impressed.

For obvious reasons, a lot of the talk surrounding this film is the way it was shot. To commit twelve years with the same cast and crew telling a continuation of the same story is just incredible. I sometimes lose interest in what I'm doing in less than half an hour. These people spent over a decade working on this modern classic. That's simply amazing.

The story itself is what the title implies it to be. It's the story of one child's journey from boy to man, through good times and bad. There were absolutely moments in this film where you'll feel uncomfortable and for good reason. It's meant to be a completely real look at family life so don't expect happy endings whenever you see conflict. It was extremely refreshing to see things actually go wrong in a modern drama.

One of the more fun parts of the film is the way it drags you into the setting. As the story is told over the span of twelve years, there are quite a few cultural and technological changes that happen along the way. You'll continually have moments of "oh I remember that" and it'll help you get that much more into the story. After awhile, the characters seem to become a family that you've known for years. You know everywhere they've been and you become genuinely disappointed when one of them makes a mistake.

At the risk of going on about this film too long, I'll wrap it up here. I don't need to go in about the settings or the soundtrack as you already know them. You lived it. That's really what I love the most about this film. It's the story of this family and how they connect with our real world. We know the characters as they live next door. There's only one thing that really makes me feel sorry for the characters. They'll never be able to watch Boyhood, one of the best films ever made.