When the marketing rolled out for Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, I was ridiculously keen to go and
watch it. A teenage drama filmed over twelve years where we see the same actor
start off at age six and end up as an eighteen-year-old. I looked up the cinema
times, raring to go, then I spotted the running time: 166 minutes. I’ve had
many a rant with friends about films that go past the two-hour mark.
Personally, I don’t see the need for it. If a narrative can’t be wrapped up in
two hours then that’s a combination of lazy scriptwriting and indulgent direction.
As much as I enjoyed The Dark Knight
Rises, it didn’t need to clock in at almost three hours. Avatar and the Transformers sequels definitely don’t warrant their excessive
running time, and even Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King could have done with a trim here-and-there (Tolkien
fans will argue Jackson simply transferred book-to-screen, but I’d argue that
book and film are two different mediums for totally different audiences.
Readers will happily flick through a book for several hours; cinema audiences
aren’t so keen to be deprived of fresh air for that amount of time). There are
a number of exceptions: The Godfather
has such an intricate, hell of a punch narrative, you don’t notice how long it
goes on for. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator
feels like a fast-paced ninety-minute blockbuster, when it’s well over two
hours long. Grudgingly, I went along to watch Boyhood, wondering how a film about growing hair in weird places,
your voice changing, and staring at girls could be stretched out for virtually
three hours.
When you stop and think about it, so much could go wrong
with a project like Boyhood. You’re
taking a massive gamble with a child actor, hoping he’s not going to turn out
like Hayden Christensen. Also, there are plenty of coming of age dramas out
there. While the filming of Boyhood
is unlike any other, what can you say about adolescence that’s different to
other entries in this sub genre?
There is so much going on in Linklater’s latest. It
starts off simple enough; Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his sister Samantha (Linklater’s
daughter, Lorelei) spend their time bickering, reading Harry Potter, collecting
toys, and riding bikes. Their parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) are
divorced; their mother struggling being a single parent whilst going back to
college, while their father is a dreamer, obsessed with the Beatles and song
writing, but can’t hold down a job. As Mason and Samantha get older things get more
complicated, both for them and their parents. Mason and Samantha discover the
opposite sex, drugs, alcohol, as well as wondering what they’re supposed to do
with the rest of their lives. As for the grown ups, Arquette’s life goes from
bad to worse, the men in her life all untrustworthy alcoholics, yet Hawke
manages to turn his life around, working in a respectable job and has his own
family.
What makes Boyhood
such a hard-not-to-like three hours is Linklater’s script, and his observations
of teenagers and parent/child relationships. I regularly had a smile on my face
as I watched moments I recognised from growing up, while the couple sat next me
laughed and glanced at each other as they had lived these same scenes with
their own children. Boyhood is full
of gentle, well thought out set pieces: Mason talks to his soon-to-be girlfriend
for the first time, no flirting, no cheesy chat up lines, just two people being
open and honest with each other; Hawke tries to have the birds and the bees
chat with his children, struggling with what to say as he’s barely grown up
himself; At a house party, Mason and his teenage friends talk about when and to
who they lost their virginity, all too obvious that every one of them is lying.
Boyhood
often feels like a polished documentary, so believable are the performances,
both from the lead and supporting cast. Considering Ellar Coltrane has never
acted before, and from an early age he has had to, on-and-off, play the same
role for twelve years, he does a perfect job. His transformation from a shy boy
obsessed with video games and fantasy novels, to being a mini version of his
father, is skilful and understated. You notice his change through mannerisms
and the way he talks to people, mirroring how Hawke behaved early on in the
film, until he ends up being a gentle, charismatic young adult.
Ethan Hawke steals every scene as Mason Senior. When
Hawke first arrives, he’s moved back from Alaska, having spent time there to
write songs, rediscover himself (and not having much success with either).
Mason Senior is naïve and irresponsible, a child in adult form. He also loves
his children and wants to get to know them. During one of his fortnightly
visits, he tells them, “I don’t want to be that dad who asks, “What have you
been up to?” and his kids go, “Not much”.” He’s this energetic, stubbornly optimistic,
fun guy to be around. You watch Boyhood
almost wishing Hawke was your dad. One of many scenes that bring a smile to
your face is when Mason Senior gives his son a CD he put together of the best
songs John, Paul, George and Ringo came up with post-Beatles, what Hawke calls
“The Black Album.” You can’t miss the
irony that this is the closest Mason Senior has got to bringing out his own
album. Like Coltrane’s transformation as he grows up, Hawke does the same, now this
soft-talking, more relaxed man who can pass on advice to his son as he’s been
through the things Mason is going through, most of it up until recently.
As a child, Lorelei Linklater provides most of the film’s
laughs. We first see her annoying her little brother by singing and dancing to
Britney Spears, having a quick answer for everything her mother tells her. What
Richard Linklater wisely avoids with Samantha is that she’s not your stereotype
obnoxious, annoying sister. Mason and Samantha squabble when they’re children,
but they’re also the best of friends, which continues throughout Boyhood, Samantha growing up to be a smart,
thoughtful young woman who is always on her brother’s side. Most of the
critics’ praise has gone to Coltrane, but Lorelei Linklater is just as wonderful
to watch.
Patricia Arquette once again gives another complex
performance here as Mason and Samantha’s mother. She tells one of her many let
downs for a boyfriend that she grew up having to look after her own mum, now
she’s got kids of her own to look after; she’s never had the opportunities most
people take for granted. She wants to better herself, going to college, dating
men who, on first impressions seem smart, driven, trying to save up so she’s
not always struggling for money. Life however, cruelly manages to find a way of
dragging her right back to square one. You can’t fail to be moved at one scene
towards the end of Boyhood, when
Mason is moving out, a saddened Arquette asking her son just what has she got
to show for her life. Mason’s answer comes straight from the heart of a son who
loves his mother.
The songs Linklater has picked for his soundtrack are
carefully used, not just reminding you what year the film has moved on to, but
they’re all songs that were played endlessly on the radio, that most people
will have heard and have some kind of attachment to. Opening to Coldplay’s Yellow, you get this sense of nostalgia,
you instantly know where you were and what you were doing when that song was
literally everywhere. There is no orchestral score in the film, instead
Linklater dots Boyhood with songs that
will stir up emotions in anyone who hears them: I danced to this song, I broke
up to this song, I f**king hate this song!
Linklater gives us a few exceptions, more recent songs
that, for most people won’t have that same attachment. For one of Boyhood’s closing scenes, Linklater
chose Arcade Fire’s Deep Blue. On
first hearing Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs,
Deep Blue doesn’t immediately stand
out as a classic, so strong is their third album. When you partner it with this
scene, it manages to sum up many of Boyhood’s
themes: reminiscing on how great it was to be a child, and how frightening it
is when you realise you’re an adult now, you have to go out into that crazy, scary,
big wide world.
Boyhood ‘s
166 minutes occasionally meander. There are a handful of scenes that, you could
argue, could have been cut (some of Coltrane’s pretentious teenage rants, while
true-to-life, as his argument falls in on itself the more he goes on, don’t
really need to be there), but Linklater’s script is heartfelt and insightful,
it will make you laugh because you recognise these small, forgotten moments
that are happening onscreen. Very few films are as charmingly honest as Boyhood.
4 out of 5
Matt
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