Boyhood
First screened in July 2014 / Most recently screened and reviewed in September 2024
Director: Richard Linklater. Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater, Libby Villari, Elijah Smith, Steven Chester Prince, Marco Perella, Jamie Howard, Andrew Villarreal, Charlie Sexton, Barbara Chisholm, Evie Thompson, Brad Hawkins, Angela Rawna, Nick Krause, Jenni Tooley, Richard Andrew Jones, Karen Jones, Roland Ruiz, Tom McTigue, Sam Dillon, Zoe Graham, Richard Robichaux, Chris Doubek, Bill Wise, Maximillian McNamara, Taylor Weaver, Jessi Mechler. Screenplay: Richard Linklater.

 Twitter Capsule: (2014) Takes a while to get perspective. Poignant by the end. Hawke easy MVP. Visual, thematic banality are dangers throughout.

In Brief: (2024) Even more than its brilliant concept, even if some limits are built-in. Rich in precise minutiae, poignant in its scope.

VOR: ⑤  Grandiose title a false lead; better taken as a miniature dilated to large scale. Ambitious undertaking, capable of rare observations and bracing lucidity.


   
Photo © 2014 IFC Films / Detour Filmproduction
Well, it finally happened: the swollen-heart experience of Boyhood that eluded me both times I saw it in the theater and that so many, many viewers accessed more instantly. Was it the right night? Does the movie shift for me as I age, especially given Boyhood's standing invite to contemplate how I was and wasn't the same person when I previously watched it? (About as much time has passed since then as passes in Boyhood itself.) I'm not sure I can answer those questions, or care. I'm just happy I eventually got to taste this reaction, which I had stopped expecting.

I still think Ethan Hawke is perfection in this, though of course it doesn't hurt that he's given such space to stretch and to occasionally spike the ball. His scene of pulling the car over and teaching his kids how to converse is probably still my favorite in the film. I got closer this time to appreciating all the awards-sweep fuss about Patricia Arquette, even if everything wonderful about her work is the antithesis of trophy-chasing. She doesn't get to cut loose as often as Hawke does (an obvious mirror for their characters' situations), but she anchors the film with such dimension and humanity without writing a simplistic love-letter to this impressive, resourceful, error-prone woman.

I now feel that the lack of visual finesse and the uneven performances that bother me in lots of Linklater movies, capping my enthusiasm in 2014, fit more comfortably into this project. Its ambitious and ingenious design wouldn't necessarily benefit from more "polish" or from a wall-to-wall world of suspiciously camera-ready everyday Texans. And the ones who do make an impression, including Olivia's two alcoholic partners played by Marco Perella and Brad Hawkins, the fussbudget restaurateur played by Richard Robichaux, the grandmother played by Libby Villari and step-grandparents played by Richard and Karen Jones, and the high-school girlfriend sketched so beautifully by Zoe Graham, palpably enrich the enterprise.

Bless Linklater for avoiding the 30-second montages that a lot of filmmakers would have dropped as interstitial reminders of what happened in 2005, what was the biggest radio hit of 2011, etc. In fact, bless him for not sweating the transitions at all, and making a movie that's both about the ways we change demonstrably even in short increments but also how discrete stages of the calendar or of our lives also blur and glide right into each other. Bless costume designer Kari Perkins for the weird fit of the pleated pants on Professor Bill (the first husband), who's never learned to shop for himself, and for Hawke's thrift-store manchild clothes in the early years and his earnestly but awkwardly "cleaned up" looks for future churchgoing, and for Arquette's ongoing quests to find and entertain and reinvent herself through whatever style she can afford year by year, while finally just wanting a comfortable old tee she's probably owned the whole time.

Derek said an interesting thing I hadn't formulated about how Linklater's movies are driven by talk, but the majority of almost every scene is handed to a nearly-nonstop speaker. The listener isn't always given much to do, and Linklater isn't a notably great director of listening. That pattern computes with me and explains why I find some of his movies stilted or suffocating. It also starts to explain why his best movies, setting aside his greatest feats with big ensembles (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Fast Food Nation) either accommodate within their premises those awkward pendulum swings of "Wait, I've been blathering, what about you?" (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset) or else revolve around a human jet-pack whom no one except an intrepid kid can imagine interrupting (School of Rock). I'm going to keep thinking about this.

More imminently, I get to lead a film-group discussion of Boyhood next week with the 30 women I've been meeting once per month for a decade now to discuss a current release. We started in September 2014, which means we just missed talking about Boyhood. We're changing up our recipe for our eleventh year together, revisiting a great movie from each year we've been meeting that never got its own 90-minute treatment. Imagine getting to bandy about this happy-sad ode to time's passing with a group of friends with whom you've passed so much time, none of whom had boyhoods but most of whom watched kids grow up, in addition to their inexhaustibly great questions and eye-opening observations about every movie we confront. Can't wait till Monday. Grade: A–

(I originally wrote this review on Letterboxd.)

(in July 2014: B)
Academy Award Nominations and Winners:
Best Picture
Best Director: Richard Linklater
★Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette
Best Supporting Actor: Ethan Hawke
Best Original Screenplay: Richard Linklater
Best Film Editing: Sandra Adair

Golden Globe Nominations and Winners:
★Best Picture (Drama)
★Best Director: Richard Linklater
★Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette
Best Supporting Actor: Ethan Hawke
Best Screenplay: Richard Linklater

Other Awards:
Berlin Film Festival: Best Director
Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
Film Independent Spirit Awards: Best Director; Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
National Society of Film Critics: Best Director; Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
New York Film Critics Circle: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Actress (Arquette); Best Film Editing
Boston Society of Film Critics: Best Film; Best Director; Best Screenplay (tie); Best Ensemble Cast; Best Film Editing
Chicago Film Critics Association: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
British Academy Awards (BAFTAs): Best Film; Best Director; Best Supporting Actress (Arquette)
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