Movie Review #16: Boyhood

Boyhood (2014)
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer(s): Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke

Life is full of moments.

I just saved you $15 dollars.

With Peter Travers, Michael Phillips, and every other film critic in America praising Boyhood as the second coming of Citizen Kane, I'd like to throw in my two cents. For, being honest, I think Boyhood was made for someone of my demographic: a heterosexual male college student. This is a movie about "my" struggles, "my" difficulties - a movie trying to deconstruct this ephemera we call "boyhood." Richard Linklater's conclusion: life is composed of moments. Why he deserves to be called a genius for this conclusion, I have no idea.

Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is a young boy, the child of a single mother (Patricia Arquette). She's struggling to get through her secondary education in order to make ends meet, having finished a messy divorce (off-screen) with Mason's father (Ethan Hawke). Hawke is the "fun" dad, whom we initially suspect to be reckless and irresponsible. Over the course of the movie, Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater - nepotism, much?), travel with their mother through a series of alcoholic husbands, disruptive moves, and job changes. Mason grows more distant and disillusioned with age, even though his father develops responsibility and grows a family of his own. Ultimately, we follow Mason to his first day at college, where he meets a nice girl and stares off into the sunset.

Being 100% honest, my synopsis is not a fair representation of all that happens in Boyhood. A lot happens. My problem: we don't get to see any of it. One might as well rename Boyhood "Jump Cut" for the number of times this happens. Every storyline Boyhood introduces - alcoholic husband #1, alcoholic husband #2, unfaithful girlfriend, etc. - gets about ten minutes of screen time before being shuffled off for some new plot thread. The intention of this, as the movie makes abundantly clear, is the representation of life as a series of emotional moments. Boyhood offers conclusions to none of its storylines, as we are "not supposed" to feel closure for any of these things. Life doesn't have clear closure; why should the movie? Yet, while I understand Linklater's intention, I think both the intention and the execution are almost stillborn. It is 100% fine to not offer closure, but a film needs to remain engaging and interesting. We need to feel invested. Since Boyhood enters a clear pattern of introducing and suddenly dropping stories, we care less about each successive plot thread. I remember alcoholic husband #1 much more than alcoholic husband #2, if only for the fact that I wasn't yet numb to Boyhood's formula. Why should I bother to care about Mason's girlfriend if I know I'm going to learn nothing about her and that the relationship will end before I get to learn anything?

Normally, I'd look to cinematography, lighting, and music to counteract my rage; perhaps there's something in the mise en scene that gives me a reason to care. But Boyhood's filming is also quite sterile. None of the angles or sets offers anything interesting except for the very last shot in the movie. And even the final glance into the sunset is designed purely to give the film an aura of openness, an openness of which any rational viewer will be tired. The music also adds nothing to the film, acting only as a marker of what year it is (they're playing "Do You Realize??" = 2002). The only song that has any value is one of Mason's father's compositions: a song about how he completely ruined his marriage. But, as with most of the other music in the movie, it lasts about thirty seconds. In addition, Boyhood throws in four to five false endings, a particularly excruciating experience considering that Boyhood is three hours long.

The very worst part of Boyhood is that we don't even end up liking Mason by the end of the movie. He begins disillusioned yet hopeful and ends disillusioned yet hopeful. Now, some might call this an example of "ring composition" or "circular narrative." That's not what's at play here. What we have is a straight line with a few bumps in the road, akin to a weak pulse reading. Ellar Coltrane does work very hard, and he's definitely giving his performance his all. Yet his dialogue is, quite frankly, pretentious. His nonconformist attitudes and opinions are those expressed by every über-skeptic college freshman: they are not compelling, to say the least. His entire growth is so caught up in mundaneness that the audience ends up not caring. Why should we when the writing makes him out to be lifeless and and unlikable?

As one might expect from my Edge of Tomorrow review, I'm no fan of gimmicks. And, as one would expect, I think Boyhood's gimmick of watching its actors age is pretty damn trite. This isn't treading new ground for Linklater, who has done pretty much the same thing with his Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight series. This is not a "new" technique either, as films such as Hoop Dreams have also followed actual stories in real-time. While it is interesting to look at technology then-and-now, it doesn't end up engaging the audience. The most one will get is an "oh, I remember that!"

So, is Boyhood really a terrible movie? No. In fact, Boyhood does two things 100% correctly: the mom and the dad. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke give some truly wonderful performances as Mason's parents. Their dynamic, that of friends despite divorce, is quite compelling, as they form a meaningful bond despite their marital issues. Boyhood doesn't fall into the moronic trap of having the divorced parents get back together (trust me, we'll talk about that when I review Chef). Also, each parent has a distinct and engaging character. At every turn, we expect Ethan Hawke to turn out to be a terrible, untrustworthy father, what with his carefree attitude, lack of upstanding character, and smoking problem. But, over the course of the movie, he quits tobacco, finds a lovely wife, converts to Baptism while remaining sane and tolerating others' secularity, has an adorable son, and helps Mason and Samantha through some truly difficult times. He's always there to support his children even though he doesn't have custody. Meanwhile, though our sympathies initially lie with the Patricia Arquette character (after all, she does divorce three husbands), we realize at the end that she's always been a selfish person at heart. Certainly, there are several occasions in which she does the best for her children.  However, these sparse moments are outweighed by the number of times she moves for sake of her own advancement rather than for her kids' emotional well-being. Due to Boyhood's inconsistent pacing, we don't quite notice this until the very end of the movie, but the sudden reveal makes the rest of the movie's moments fall into line. Had Boyhood focused just on the mom and the dad, I would have enjoyed it much more.

Then again, perhaps Boyhood needed to be told from Mason's perspective in order for the parental characters to work as well as they do. And, despite its numerous problems, I did find myself entertained by it. The film is a personal disappointment - a big one at that. But, glancing at it sideways, I can see something of what every other critic sees. At the same time, I don't think a mainstream audience will. This is not a conventional movie: the question is whether or not the novelty will work for the viewer. For me, it certainly did not. But, who knows? Maybe it might for you.

Recommendation: Speaking personally, I think Boyhood is an intellectually sterile film when compared to those that have come before it. It's far from incompetently filmed, and there are good things about it, but I'm not quite sure if it's worth three hours of one's life. If you like these types of movies - ones without resolutions - then Boyhood might be your favorite movie of the year. But, if you enjoy movies only when they have a three or five act structure, then Boyhood will make you angry to no end. It's very much a personal choice: enter at your own risk.

I give Boyhood 5.1 out of 10 stars.