Review of Boyhood (2014) by Andrew M — 05 Apr 2015

I went to see this given the reviews it was receiving, and walked out 165 minutes later thinking the world was playing some kind of prank on me. I quite honestly hated almost every minute of this. I'm going to try to elaborate on why:

It's predictable - as soon as I saw Arquette's character, what ran through my mind was OK, what's the most cliched thing they could do with this? Oh, have her marry her professor and he'll turn out to be an abussive drunk asshole. Don't get me wrong, no-one deserves an asshole, but right there any claims of originality I had been hearing went right out the door, especially when her NEXT guy also turned out to be a bit of a jerk. Ethan Hawke (whom, OK, I kinda loked at first) started as an easy-going pseudo-intellectual -- gee, he hasn't played THAT before :/ -- who aged and became just as boring as everyone else. Which brings me to...

Nothing of consequence happens - by which I mean, what exactly does Mason learn here? How does he change over the course of the film, besides physically? Yeah, the first stepfather was abussive to the mother, but what of him and his sister? He lets them go with their father even though their chores aren't finished, and tells them they'll finish when they get back -- not unreasonable, and yet it's presented that way -- and he makes Mason get a haircut -- wow, such a mean guy (that's sarcasm). He misses curfew and the second dad chews him out mildly -- while drinking -- and Mason doesn't seem to care but nothing happens. Near as I could tell, he's the same from what little actual character he has he doesn't -- he's the same bland person at the start as he is at the beginning, and none of his actions or inactions impacts that. When his girlfriend dumped him and called HIM an asshole I was agreeing with her and I don't think I was supposed to.

What's with the mixed "drinking is bad" signals -- our first sign that the professor is bad is he buys alcohol. Then the second father is drinking a beer while very passively chewing out Mason. The film seems to concentrate on the stepfathers drinking as a sign they're assholes. Yet EVERYONE in this film drinks and yet only those two are focused on being the bad guys because of it. Why?

The side stories we don't see seem more interesting than the main one -- How and why did Hawke decided to settle down? The landscaper who went to college at Arquette's suggestion, he seems interesting, why couldn't we follow that? No, we're just going to watch this kid with no real personality instead? OK...

The length -- yeah, I get that covering twelve years this would be long, but why 165 minutes? I was completely checked out after 120 and yet it kept going. I was getting ready to leave when Mason got into his truck and drove off to college, but then there are TWO MORE SCENES at the college. WHY? His boyhood was clearly over when he drove off by himself for the first time (the only symbolism that kinda clicked when it happened -- yay, one point). There was no reason for those last two scenes -- none. Oh, wait, I found out later that girl was the same one who gave him a note saying he liked the haircut. That was 9-10 years before, and we had seen this girl for 30 seconds tops. We know nothing about her or these other characters he just met. I also can barely recognize my own younger cousins after 8 years, let alone a girl I barely saw.

The idea is not really that original -- there's a bit of risk involved here, sure, that an actor will get hurt or die in the intervening time period, but really that's kind of it. There's nothing about growing up that isn't covered in any long running TV series, and it's actually better there because, as I mentioned previously, you get character development which Mason did not get. Aside from that shooting schedule, there's nothing technically outstanding in the film -- the cinematography and sound is fine, the editing is fine. I'm not saying they're bad, but they just don't stand out.

So, yes, I unappologetically hate this film. I get that it's a slice of life type film, and that some will get it and others won't, but usually in these films I can see what others *might* connect to in the film if I don't myself like it. Here, I honestly don't see it, and every time someone has tried to explain WHY they liked it, it ends up being one of the points I hated about it.

That this is winning the awards this season over, IMO, much more thoughful, better acted, and well put together films such as Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, and Whiplash is upsetting me in ways it really shouldn't given that these are just films.