Watching Richard Linklater’s watershed film “Boyhood” (2014) feels like opening a long-forgotten, cobwebbed trunk full of old photos, Pokémon cards and Nintendo games you discovered in your attic. Following the growth of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from age 6 to 18, the film captures the midnight Harry Potter book releases, the Britney Spears songs and the Razr phones vital to the childhoods of Generation Y. On the way, the film wins viewers over with its honest, moving depiction of the trials and tribulations of growing up.
A remarkable experiment in film production, “Boyhood” chronicles the development of the same actor over the course of 12 years (2002-13), creating a fictional life for him to inhabit and enact. I’ll repeat this because it’s so impressive: Linklater filmed scenes with Coltrane for 12 years. As a result, the film captures him aging before our eyes, his voice dropping, his facial hair sprouting and his baby fat disappearing. With this bold choice, Linklater blurs the distinction between documentary and fiction, situating the film liminally to create an immediately accessible and interactive epic. The film begs viewers to wax nostalgic and root for Mason through the trials of childhood.
And there are many trials. Like James Joyce’s Ulysses lofts the ordinary life of Leopold Bloom to mythological grandeur, so too does “Boyhood” give adolescence an epic impressiveness. Mason’s mother (Patricia Arquette) lives with two consecutive abusive, alcoholic husbands and Mason sees his father (Ethan Hawke) remarry. He learns about sex, has his first beer, moves homes repeatedly and finally attends college. In a parallel to the tale of Hercules, Mason’s 12 years match the Greek hero’s 12 trials, with beer serving as his Nemean Lion and sex his Hydra. We are shocked at how our little Mason, a cheeky, cloud-watching 6-year-old, achieves these milestones quickly throughout the film.
In short, the film invites us to be parents — and to care for Mason. We despise his violent first stepfather, his hyper-conservative, critical second stepfather and the belligerent middle school bullies he faces. As we laugh after moments of suspense pass without calamity, like Mason’s decisions to text while driving and throw a saw blade like a ninja star, we realize how invested we are in his life. If his youth is a high school football game, then we have become the rowdy parents in the stands, proud of every catch and wanting to run down to the field when someone tackles our son.
There is little direct sensationalism or saccharine sentimentalism in the film. Instead of presenting a tear-jerking scrapbook, Linklater manages to create more of a candid camera, presenting Mason’s life without many trappings. Like Gus van Sant’s “Elephant” (2003), “Boyhood” is a chapter book, with honest vignettes of youth in all its happiness and exuberance but also in its vulnerability and disillusionment. While this pure verisimilitude occasionally makes the film drag, we realize that it mirrors life, which also limps at times.
As Mason ages, learned skepticism and reserve often replace the film’s naïve effervescence. We watch Mason change from a precocious, bedtime story-loving child to a pensive, existential hipster. His sister Samantha (who, played by Linklater’s daughter Lorelei Linklater, eerily blurs the line between fiction and documentary) transforms from a nerdy, nosy pest into an apathetic teenager reminiscent of Violet Parr from “The Incredibles” (2004). His father, once the epitome of the fun, “no seat belts and baseball games” dad, becomes a lackluster paunch by the end.
At the film’s close, Mason reflects while stoned in a canyon with his new college friends. He asks what the meaning of it all is and where the rest of his life is headed and his friend, also playing to the stoner trope, says that we don’t seize the day but instead the day seizes us. Hearing this, Mason eulogizes about life’s immensity and our failure to contain it within some concise fortune cookie slip. As his life drives inexorably forward, he discovers a self-reliance, taking the wheel to discover his own way but still using the rear view mirror to remind him where he’s been.
Rating: 8.8/10
“Boyhood” is playing daily at the Nugget at 5:45 p.m.
