Boyhood | The "Other" Film Spectator

Director: Richard Linklater
Rating: R

There are no title cards telling us the dates; there are no dates stamped at the bottom of the screen; there are no characters telling us what year it is; there are only characters growing, aging literally before our eyes in a twelve-year time frame. In Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014), we are taken on this journey as voyeurs as well as spectators in an unprecedented coming of age story told through the lens of a young boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane), which begins at the age of six and continues until he is about to enter college.

This is perhaps Richard Linklater’s most ambitious project since it took twelve years in the making. His other projects such as the Before trilogy offers a continuous peek into the lives of two characters Jessie (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delphy) who met on a train in Vienna in 1991 and fell in love in the midst of their evening together as they connected in deep conversation about life, personal dreams, and love. Again, we get a chance to voyeuristically listen to them and catch up with the characters to see where they are in life every nine years in three different films. In Boyhood, the film allows for another type of voyeurism. It envelops us in a two-hour and forty-five minute coming of age epic that provides glimpses of Mason’s life at the age of six, ten, fourteen, and eighteen. Through this, we get snapshots of various stages in his life along with other peripheral characters such as his mother, sister, and father who all share moments of angst, uncertainty, and epiphanies as life continues to change—for better or for worse.

Boyhood is a flagship film in terms of the evolution of family melodrama in the 21^st century. In the 1950s, family melodrama notably espoused thematic undertones that revealed the breakdown of the nuclear family, especially in regards to the prescribed societal roles within family institutions. The idealized family construct, often defined by the larger social community, are revisited and reevaluated, and then is often left to feelings of dissatisfaction. By contrast, Boyhood offers the current reality—and does not equivocate. The nuclear family is already broken. Divorce, although still traumatizing, is no longer considered taboo. Single mothers have more options: to return to school in hopes for a sustainable career and a better life, to marry again and reconstruct a new family that fits the socially prescribed ideal (i.e., the stable middle-upper class bourgeois), or to create one’s own identity outside those roles. And Mason’s mother tried all of these . . .

Mason goes through the ups and downs of his mother’s trial and errors in parenting, which includes moving from one home to another and having to contend with different father figures. His mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette), yearns for familial stability and structure but receives the antithesis, especially in the men she chooses, since none of them fit the ideal. Mason’s father (Ethan Hawke) continues to indulge in a carefree life as a musician. Although divorced from Mason’s mother, he still remains part of his children’s lives in a caring and endearing way.

Furthermore, Mason and his older sister, Samantha (Lorelie Linklater), continue to struggle with the repercussions of their mom’s subsequent marital failures after her first divorce. To exacerbate the situation, Olivia’s decision to return to school in order to make her a better provider for her children has prevented her from being a proactive parent—especially when it comes to protecting her children from cruel, alcoholic stepfathers who have exercised an authoritarianism that consists of having “so many lines.” In Mason’s eyes, a stepfather is seen more as an intruder rather than a paternal father figure, since he feels that they were already a family during the time his mom was a single mother.

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What is truly endearing, heartfelt, and compelling about Linklater’s films is the existential realism that permeates throughout his characters. This is what I truly look forward to when watching a Linklater film. In Boyhood, Mason’s epiphanies and awakenings of who he is in the bigger world are revealed through the intimate and deep conversations that take place in various stages of his life. As a child, when Mason’s stepfather cuts his shaggy locks into a buzz cut without Mason’s permission, Mason is stripped from his identity and vehemently tells his mom “it’s my hair.” As a teenager, he experiences his first heartache when he is dumped by his first love. As a result, his father provides words of comfort and insight about women always trying to “trade up,” especially when the relationship was never a match in the first place. Last, as a budding but jaded photographic artist, he gains wisdom from his photography teacher in regards to how discipline and responsibility must go hand in hand with talent in order to succeed. Such pearls of wisdom are part of the shaping of Mason’s identity. We can only imagine what he will become later on in life. But then again, the film unfortunately has to end—although elliptically.

Boyhood is endearing, nostalgic, and sympathetic to the inevitable chaos in family life that becomes part of the growing up experience. It also reminds us how fleeting life is and most importantly, how life’s most altering moments can suddenly take hold of us, right before our eyes.

August 1, 2014

NPR’s Terry Gross’ Interview with Richard Linklater