Review: Boyhood

12 years in the life of young Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane), his struggling single mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette), and the infrequent presence of his father Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke). The film starts with Mason Jr. at age six, and finishes with him at age 18. During all of this we witness his mother’s struggle to raise him, educate herself, and deal with a string of disappointing, abusive partners. Meanwhile, Mason Sr. gets to have the kids with him for every second weekend, driving in his truly sweet-arse ’68 GTO (the real-life possession of the film’s director), that early on Mason Sr. promises to pass down to his son one day when he’s old enough. Lorelei Linklater plays Mason Jr.’s bratty older sister Samantha.

 

If you’re gonna use a gimmick like filming a film during respective schedules over a period of 12 years, you really need to make sure that the film is best told through this gimmick, and that the story is actually worthy of the gimmick so that it doesn’t feel like, well, a gimmick. That’s why this 2014 film from indie darling, writer-director Richard Linklater (“Dazed and Confused”, “School of Rock”) only earns a soft recommendation from me. It’s really just an OK, kinda interesting, but thoroughly familiar and unspectacular film with a script not worthy of its gimmick. Nope, wasn’t wowed by this one, folks.

 

Starting off with a frigging Coldplay song was not the way for Mr. Linklater to endear me, but I have to say that I was immediately impressed by young Ellar Coltrane, and that impression held up throughout the film as we see the actor and character both age and mature before our very eyes. That’s interesting, but not in and of itself worthy of massive praise. Nor will I award the film a high rating simply because of the inherent pitfalls the film could’ve fallen into (Actors could’ve quit, someone could’ve died, etc.) All interesting stuff, but not in my view terribly relevant to the quality of the film.

 

From a story perspective this really did seem like a 70s film to me. “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” springs to mind. Thing is, not only am I not a fan of that film (“Boyhood” is actually better), but if I was meant to side with Patricia Arquette in her Oscar-winning performance…nope, just didn’t happen. In fact, Arquette, as usual, failed to make all that much of an impression with me. She always seems so mousy and beige wallpaper to me, it amazes me that she’s chosen acting as her profession when on screen she comes across as lacking any self-confidence. Here she’s perfectly OK as the long-suffering, hard-working mother with bad taste in men, but I was much more interested in Coltrane and his dad, played well by Ethan Hawke (especially the former, though). In fact, Arquette’s character rubbed me the wrong way. She knows her professor husband is violent and nearly hit her son in the head with a glass. So what does she do? Leave all the kids with him and drive off for a bit. The fuck? Hawke plays the typical divorced dad who gets to have all the fun with little of the responsibility (but who slowly matures throughout the film), whilst Arquette does all the hard work. Yet Arquette felt invisible to me as usual, Hawke (hardly my favourite actor, but he has his moments) ended up making the stronger impression on me, and Coltrane eclipsed them both. This kid (well, he’s 19 by the end) is one to watch, folks. Linklater’s nepotism in casting his daughter Lorelei as the older sister is a real problem for me. She’s forced from start to finish and looks absolutely nothing like either of the actors playing her parents, nor her brother. Look at her skin colour for cryin’ out loud! She’s not in the film a whole lot (and despite begging to be cast, she apparently got bored with the project temporarily), but when she is, she’s an unnecessary distraction. Marco Perella, however, is absolutely perfect casting as the insecure, alcoholic professor Arquette marries at one point.

 

One of the things I really liked about the film is that it lets you work out where you are in the story on your own. Sometimes that can be annoying, but here it’s actually not too confusing at all and I liked the confidence Linklater showed in not babying the audience. I did, however, wish there were more scenes between Hawke and Arquette. I know they were divorced, but it still felt like their relationship (and in parenting a child, they do essentially still have a connection of sorts) was lacking on screen. Hell, I think there’s a lack of scenes between Hawke and young Linklater, too now that I think of it. This is a 2 ¾ hour long film, and yet it felt a bit underdone. Weird.

 

Look, there’s a little bit more to this film than its filmmaking gimmick. However, said gimmick is still the standout thing. Plot and character-wise it offers nothing new. And wow, people get more conservative as they get older? Who knew? Shocking revelation there. In some ways I almost wish the Linklater did run into some major problem in making the film. I’m not saying I wanted any of the cast or crew to die of course, but if something caused someone to leave the project for let’s say a non-fatal reason, it might’ve meant taking the film in an unexpected direction. As is, it plays like a fictional film trying to be a documentary, and ends up looking a bit aimless and pointless. In fact, it seemed to be lacking an overall point if you ask me. Ethan Hawke and particularly young Ellar Coltrane are really good, though, and the film is never boring, I just wasn’t moved like I expected to be.

 

A lot of people really found this profound, I felt it was really quite clichéd. It’s certainly OK, there’s not a whole lot drastically wrong with it, it’s just that it’s not worthy of its ground-breaking gimmick, nor the actual effort to have made it over 12 years (a few days each year, apparently). I think it wants to be an American classic (something like a film version of my favourite TV show “The Wonder Years”, perhaps), and it’s nowhere close to that, I’m afraid. Terrible ending, too. Seriously, what the hell was that? I hope to see Mr. Coltrane in more films, however. Anyone that good at 7 years old (let alone the rest of the film as he gets older) has a definitely bright acting future if you ask me.

 

Rating: B-