Boyhood is the simple tale of a life

Any other movie would hire a 10 year old, dress him young to play 8, dress him old to play 12, and then have a slightly similar looking 16 year old actor dressed young to play his next stage of life, and so on. Boyhood however follows Mason Jr from the age of 6 or 7 up until he goes off to college, and was filmed sporadically over 12 years. It has the same actors throughout the 12 year period. If nothing else, you can appreciate the artistry and dedication to pull this off.

I left the theater not thinking too much of it. It isn’t a sweeping drama, it isn’t an action story, and there is no story arc to tie it all together. It really is just the story of Mason’s life, but as I’ve reflected on the film since, I’m growing to like it more and more. The writer/director Richard Linklater creates a life-like movie showcasing how the little things in everyday life during our formative years make us who we are. And since it is Mason’s story, the movie changes as he grows.

Linklater captures the world of the growing child perfectly. Young kids don’t care about grown up things, so early in the movie, Mason cares more about getting the newest Harry Potter book (a whole scene in the movie) than the war in Iraq (mentioned by an adult in passing and never explored). When young, his world revolves around his sister, so she is a principal, but as they grow older you see her less and less. As in the real world, people enter and leave his life, sometimes slowly, sometimes violently. Some he keeps in touch with, others, while maybe important to him at that point in his life, leave and we never hear from them again.

The movie also takes care to show the important points in Mason’s life, which isn’t always the things we might think. When his Mom remarries for the first time, we see her come home from the honeymoon and hand out presents, but when that marriage fails and she marries again, it isn’t even mentioned in the film. One scene she is meeting a guy she likes, and the next is a year later and they are in a new house and married. And the film does this throughout, it jumps ahead in spurts here and there, without giving the viewer a map to follow along. The movie doesn’t spoon feed us all the details happening in the background, expecting us to keep up as events are going on. Sometimes the only way to know the timeline has jumped forward is Mason’s changing hairstyle.

There is no “story”, but even so, the more I think about this movie, the more I like it. It is the simple life of an average kid. He faces the same hardships we all did growing up, as such the movie feels real and substantial. Though I wasn’t impressed 5 minutes after it ended, after reflection it is probably one of the most endearing films I’ve seen in awhile.