The key factor in Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" is that it relies on life as its main plot point, not just the characters and their motivations. Like life, they change as the years go by – in spirit and in goals. For young children coming of age, their youth is a turbulent time – full of raging hormones and confused emotions, questioning themselves about their place in this life – you only live once, so they say.
Life never favors other people. There are others who seem to have it all and there are others who are always struggling. Mason's parents are the perfect example – they separate on amicable terms, and one seems to be more successful than the other, but then it shifts so gradually that their fates balance each other's out, making it unavoidably fair. Unpredictable, that life.
So it goes with little Mason's youth. We first see him as a kid, gazing into the sky, wondering about life at an age where he is supposedly carefree. His sister with an attitude constantly teases him in a realistically annoying manner, and their single mother is struggling to find a better life for them all. Man men enter their lives, most unfortunately alcoholic and troubled. Mason, like most boys in that situation, logically seeks out advice from his father from time to time. He never really says it, but he's feeling confused and needs proper guidance.
We've all been in his shoes. We were (some still are) all confused, lonely, trying to comprehend this thing call life. We were all spoilt brats with attitudes that would make our parents tear their hair off their heads. We were all their bundles of joy whenever we succeeded in something. Yet they are still human like us, and at their age are still trying to find out where life is taking them, for better or for worse. Linklater perfectly captures that essence, and spreads it out perfectly across nearly three hours of condensed life. He does the rarity - create an experimental film that sounds well enough to perform well with indie audiences, yet retain the emotional energy of classic Hollywood melodramas down to its barest, realistic form and lays it all out in front of the audience to see.
That's the beauty of his film, it isn't one-sided. It ebbs and flows with the current, and surrounds the audience with its unforced, genuine emotions. I did not feel much empathy for Mason as much as I did feeling LIKE Mason as he went through this crazy, subtle adventure. I felt moved and touched with every poignant scene Mason has to go through, enlightened whenever his father gives him some advice, as bewildered as he is at life.
We don't have many movies like this anymore nowadays. Few movies are willing to evoke the senses purely, both independent and mainstream – one either cops out and goes for audience sentimentality (and Oscar votes) while the other becomes pretentious fluff that thinks its art but it isn't, just an artist on a stage full of sound and fury. "Boyhood" is that rare gem that isn't – an incredibly beautiful film with many layers that provoke the mind and emotions, and left me feeling bittersweet with a tidal wave of nostalgia and poignancy, but ultimately left me feeling optimistic about the future.
Mason's journey has been quite the ride, indeed. That this was filmed in 12 years is no easy task by itself - this is a film that speaks of our time perfectly, defining the current generation with aplomb where so many other modern filmmakers grasped. If you are, or are parents with kids who were, born within the 1990s and early 2000s, you owe it to yourself to see this film.
Life never favors other people. There are others who seem to have it all and there are others who are always struggling. Mason's parents are the perfect example – they separate on amicable terms, and one seems to be more successful than the other, but then it shifts so gradually that their fates balance each other's out, making it unavoidably fair. Unpredictable, that life.
So it goes with little Mason's youth. We first see him as a kid, gazing into the sky, wondering about life at an age where he is supposedly carefree. His sister with an attitude constantly teases him in a realistically annoying manner, and their single mother is struggling to find a better life for them all. Man men enter their lives, most unfortunately alcoholic and troubled. Mason, like most boys in that situation, logically seeks out advice from his father from time to time. He never really says it, but he's feeling confused and needs proper guidance.
We've all been in his shoes. We were (some still are) all confused, lonely, trying to comprehend this thing call life. We were all spoilt brats with attitudes that would make our parents tear their hair off their heads. We were all their bundles of joy whenever we succeeded in something. Yet they are still human like us, and at their age are still trying to find out where life is taking them, for better or for worse. Linklater perfectly captures that essence, and spreads it out perfectly across nearly three hours of condensed life. He does the rarity - create an experimental film that sounds well enough to perform well with indie audiences, yet retain the emotional energy of classic Hollywood melodramas down to its barest, realistic form and lays it all out in front of the audience to see.
That's the beauty of his film, it isn't one-sided. It ebbs and flows with the current, and surrounds the audience with its unforced, genuine emotions. I did not feel much empathy for Mason as much as I did feeling LIKE Mason as he went through this crazy, subtle adventure. I felt moved and touched with every poignant scene Mason has to go through, enlightened whenever his father gives him some advice, as bewildered as he is at life.
We don't have many movies like this anymore nowadays. Few movies are willing to evoke the senses purely, both independent and mainstream – one either cops out and goes for audience sentimentality (and Oscar votes) while the other becomes pretentious fluff that thinks its art but it isn't, just an artist on a stage full of sound and fury. "Boyhood" is that rare gem that isn't – an incredibly beautiful film with many layers that provoke the mind and emotions, and left me feeling bittersweet with a tidal wave of nostalgia and poignancy, but ultimately left me feeling optimistic about the future.
Mason's journey has been quite the ride, indeed. That this was filmed in 12 years is no easy task by itself - this is a film that speaks of our time perfectly, defining the current generation with aplomb where so many other modern filmmakers grasped. If you are, or are parents with kids who were, born within the 1990s and early 2000s, you owe it to yourself to see this film.