Review of Boyhood (2014) by Neil K — 12 Mar 2015

It seems like cheating to call a film that endeavors to capture one lifetime as just that, once-in-a-lifetime. But there's no other way to describe it. The epitome of neorealism (yet still disliked by Bicycle Thieves advocates, which boggles my mind), Richard Linklater's career-long fascination with time culminated in this masterwork which endeavors to be a time capsule of American life and succeeds, infusing flecks of the decade as it unfolds without ever feeling like a period piece or a nostalgia trip. At its core is the story of Mason, an American boy typical in every way, to perfect effect. The performances in the film are so honest, so truthful and bereft of any sense of theatricality that it takes the viewer some time to adjust to it. Indeed, like all Linklater's films, the movie feels underwhelming to the average filmgoer, who feels "nothing happens". Boyhood is all about the tension of reality, a portrait of true American life. Nobody flies, nobody dies, nobody gets powers from a radioactive bug. Instead, we're treated to moments in a life, fragmented and yet flowing, like a melody that changes keys but keeps its tempo ever moving forward. We're not invited to cling to the edge of our seats, nor try and unravel some mystery, but rather drift in Boyhood, letting its small waves wash over us; to meditate on time and really think rather than be spoon-fed some message. There's no grand triumph, no overcoming unbearable odds. Instead, like the tagline Ethan Hawke posed suggests, we watch as "some people grow up, some people age".

Sure, some have suggested that the film loses a lot of its impact if it wasn't shot over 12 years, which is also the single shittiest criticism posed since the term "nitpicking" rose to prominence. What if Birdman wasn't shot to look like one take, or didn't have the Michael Keaton background story element? What if Gravity didn't have it's stunning visuals? What if Hard Day's Night didn't have the Beatles, but was just about four random guys? Or Jurassic Park had used people in costumes instead of CGI?

What the hell kind of critique is that? When you make a film, you select all the methods by which you want it to come together, carefully choosing the elements, from who you cast to what film stock you shoot with, to what locations, knowing any element could make or break the film. Choosing to shoot the film over twelve years with the same actors isn't a "gimmick", its an artistic choice that managed to make the story far more powerful. That shouldn't detract from the film. It's silly to try to detract from any movie by saying "Well, it wouldn't have been nearly as good if they'd done these things differently". No shit. That's why they didn't. And that's why the director should be praised for making the appropriate choices for the story. That's, in fact, the whole reason awards and accolades are given. To say "Good job making the right choices, instead of the wrong ones".

In this case, Richard Linklater wanted to create the kind of contemporary time capsule that would last the ages, told not in retrospect as Dazed & Confused was, but rather in real-time, something that had never been done before. It's of its time and yet timeless, because even as the peripheral technology changes (the film doesn't spend time focused, for example, on the Nintendo Wii enough to detract from the story's impact over time, but rather uses it to season in a sense of time-spatial placement for viewers who lived through that era) the story will remain as honest and universal as it always has. True, it simply shows us days past instead of Days of Future Past, lacking the visceral punch of car chases and lasers, but its a singular masterwork that connects to something much deeper if you're willing to let it. Even though its the story of one individual, Linklater reminds us that we're all cogs in a grand cosmic machinery, and how truly, exquisitely beautiful that is.