Review: Boyhood

Subscribe to Nick Alexander’s blog today.

The movie reviewing world is all a-flutter about “Boyhood,” an experiment in film-making that, as claimed, has never been done before. It is currently at 100% on metacritic (which actually isn’t accurate, it should be about 97%), and a number of prognosticators are speculating that this film might very well be Linklater’s first foray into the Best Picture category.

It will not be nominated. Or if it were nominated, it will not win.

The story: quite simple, really. A boy grows up. Over the course of nearly three hours, you watch this same child actor mature before your very eyes, as the larger story of his dysfunctional family life happens around him. The overall effect of the film is astounding, and I was rapturous the moment I left the theater.

But over the last few days, a sense of dissatisfaction just kept gnawing at me. And it wasn’t until this morning that I figured out why.

The story is nothing more than a series of set-ups without any follow throughs. The child goes through some tense situation, and the audience is left hanging, how is he going to handle this? Except this is never answered. The situation is forgotten about the moment the hairstyle changes, and you know that you are in the next year.

Case in point: in one scene, he is threatened by the school bully. In any other number of films, Mason would have to find some means to overcome the bully’s threats, perhaps culminating in a big fight sequence. (“My Bodyguard (1980)” is a great movie of this sort). But this film doesn’t really care. It fast-forwards in time, and the bully is never heard from again.

If this wasn’t that important, why bring it up?

There are many other instances throughout the film like this. In one scene, Mason gets a Bible for his birthday. It’s a great little moment, and when you think it’s played for guffaws, to the credit of Linklater, it is played perfectly straight. But you never see that Bible again, after those years pass.

As a series of snapshots, the effect is mesmerizing; but as a story, it trains the audience to not expect much. Instead of looking for closure on some of these plot threads, it pulls the hat trick and say that the plot threads are not the point, look at the kid! He’s now twelve!

After further thought, I figured I would save you a bunch of money. You can experience the fullness of “Boyhood” without ever leaving your home.

1. Go to Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu +, any streaming service that you have… or… go borrow a DVD box set of a favorite, long running television series, focused on a family, of which some of the main characters are children in those earliest seasons. (Little House on the Prairie, Cosby Show, Everwood, etc.).

2. Go to imdb and search amongst all seasons and pick one episode per season; make sure that episode’s storyline is centered around that child actor. Do this for every season.

3. Start with that episode from season 1.

4. Watch only fifteen minutes of that episode. Go directly to the chosen episode of season 2.

5. Continue until you reach that specific episode of the last season.

This would be the exact same effect of watching Boyhood.