Review of the film Boyhood

“You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kind of thinking it's the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us.”*

     Director Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a film built upon the moments — be they dramatically significant, ordinarily mundane, or those that fall somewhere on the spectrum in between — that illustrate a life. And populate a childhood with seeds of memories that will take root and grow into shapes that ultimately depend upon those future moments yet unknown. It is a story that finds it structure simply and quietly. The weight of its impressive force does not always register until later, when the screen is dark again. Then the fragments and bits of what a viewer recalls begin to gather definition, clarity, and depth.

     What emerges will vary for every viewer, but there will always be that boy at the center, growing up in suburban Texas. At first, Mason is a mere 8 years old, but he quickly ages before our eyes until 18 and on the brink of striding out of boyhood into life as an adult. The trick of the movie is that it develops as Mason does — Linklater spent a few days every now and again for 12 years with the same actors filming scenes, thereby adding on to the narrative. And thus the film always exists in the present tense. There are no flashbacks or forwards. And it is amazing to watch the moments unfold at the same time as they do for the characters.  

     For Mason, these moments nearly always involve his family. Not one of them is a perfect figure. Rather, each member of this boy’s world — be it his fast-talking sister, his distant yet kind father, his many and varied childhood friends, or the multiple teachers and authority figures — is nuanced and shaded with imperfections. His devoted mother (Patricia Arquette) is the cornerstone of his life. She may have questionable taste in men and often does not possess the answer to life’s myriad of quandaries. But throughout the film’s 12 years, she is always there, attempting to help him navigate his world with sensitivity and courage. It is the relationship between these two that is captured so eloquently by the present tense nature of Boyhood. Though they are constantly changing and being re-shaped by their surroundings and time, these two will always have each other. She will make sure of that. And he will always benefit from each and every moment. 

*dialogue from film.