Boyhood Review
By David Kempler
Growing up Slowly and Quickly
I swore I wouldn't see it, but since it is almost universally adored, I forced myself to see director Richard Linklater's latest, "Boyhood". Linklater has had a lot of films that have drawn critical acclaim, but my personal favorite of his was "
School of Rock". The rest did not did not do much for me and some of them actually annoyed me.
"Boyhood" is most definitely unusual. It was filmed in thirty-nine days over a period of twelve years. That's right, I said twelve years. The point was to show the actors growing up, rather than having different actors playing the characters at different ages. It's merely a gimmick, albeit a creative one.
The boy in "Boyhood" is Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and he lives in a small town in East Texas. When we first meet him, he is a six-year-old in grade school. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, Mason is eighteen and in college. His mother is Olivia (Patricia Arquette), and she serves as the driving force for all of the events, primarily by her poor choices in men. These choices see the family moving often and the children changing schools on a semi-regular basis.
Olivia's first choice was her now-ex-husband, portrayed by Ethan Hawke. He is the father of Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), but he has played a very small role in their upbringing. He turns up once in a while and takes the kids out for a fun day, but often displays the irresponsible behavior that played a role in the split between them.
Olivia goes to college in Houston, where she meets husband number two, Professor Bill Wellbrock (Marco Perella). Bill is a divorced man with two of his own children. Her life with Bill is almost serenely happy, although we do see glimpses into possible future problems. Bill has a tendency towards rigidity. This tendency grows with the assistance of his growing love affair with alcohol. This section of the film is by far the best. It is the only one that has truly compelling drama. One particular scene that features Bill finally losing it, is gripping, and at this point I thought we were finally on our way. If the rest of the film moved at a similar pace, "Boyhood" would be great. However, that is not the case. Olivia moves on again and the film falls back into an even but unexciting keel.
Everything that follows is somewhat of a letdown. The pace slows way down as we watch Mason examine his life as he matures. There are lots of scenes that focus on his introspective nature and his explorations with young women. I'm certain that it's meant to be deep and thought-provoking, but with a length of two hours and forty minutes, the lack of excitement is sometimes tedious. "Boyhood" is a quality piece and I can't argue that it is not well done, but aside from one section, I found it to be uninspiring. You may love it, but I didn't.
