Boyhood
An ambitious long-term experiment that paid off handsomely, Texan writer-director Richard Linklater’s formally bold coming-of-age drama was filmed in small installments across 12 years, with key cast members growing from children to adults across the span of the shoot. Just 7 when filming began, Ellar Coltrane is a real discovery as Mason Evans Jr., a wide-eyed boy navigating the eventful emotional journey from first grade to college. Patricia Arquette gives a richly detailed, Oscar-winning performance as Mason’s mother, while Linklater regular Ethan Hawke radiates soulful authenticity as his flawed but loving dad. Tender, bittersweet and beautifully observed, BOYHOOD is a Great American Novel onscreen.
Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke
- Notes From Pablo LarraínBOYHOOD breaks all rules of reality with one of the most realistic approaches to human life that I’ve ever seen. Filmed over 12 years, this film follows a boy who grows up in front of you and with you. It’s moving and scary at the same time. It makes you witness the fascinating process of a body exploding into the uncomfortable and original reality of the self. I’ve made a lot of period movies and have always felt that maybe cinema is the most interesting time machine that we have created as culture. Since smartphones arrived we can look back and do a similar exercise, but it’s not a motion picture. There’s something in the idea of this family growing with you that has made me think about my own personal growth and of my own kids and the people I love in a way I’ve never felt from another movie. You become a witness of a very specific process. I would’ve stayed in that cinema for another two hours to see what’s next—BOYHOOD 2. It’s an exercise of time. There’s a very specific sensibility you have to have as a filmmaker in order to film 10 days a year for 12 years and understand what you’re doing over that time span. I admire the intelligence and substance of that exercise. It’s very difficult to show up on a set and be able to understand where you are, where you’re going, and make the audience part of that family in such a unique way. I’m not talking about just simple empathy, because I’m not very into that. I’m talking about a real empathy, because it affects you and makes you look around your own world and life.
