Movie review: Boyhood

Hello!

Since it is officially an Oscar season, let’s review one of the most definite contenders – Boyhood.

Boyhood is a coming of age drama directed and written by Richard Linklater. The movie follows one boy’s life through period of 12 years (from 6 to 18) and it actually took 12 years to make this movie because the director didn’t want to cast different actors for the same character in different ages. So, he enlisted Ellar Coltrane to play the main character Mason Jr., Ethan Hawke to play his father Mason Sr., Patricia Arquette to play his mother Olivia and his own daughter Lorelei Linklater to play the sister of Mason Jr. – Samantha – and followed them for more than a decade.

I really enjoyed Ethan Hawke’s performance, he portrayed a divorced parent perfectly and not just in a bad way. He showed that divorced dads are usually doing the best they can even if it doesn’t work out.

The mother’s character was super annoying to me; I have no idea why she wanted kids in a first place. I guess to give her some higher purpose? Also, she has a terrible taste in man, just saying.

The sister’s character was okay, she didn’t stick out much for me. I also believe that Ellar Coltrane who played the main character could have done a better job. I didn’t like his performance until he was about 12 years old, since that age his acting got much better.

The movie pretty much dealt with only family issues but there were a lot of them: divorce, abuse in a family, parent’s alcoholism, and child/parent relationship.

It is an amazing experience to see a movie that took such a long time to make; it is a truly unique piece of art. There hasn’t been anything like this before, this was an original experiment and I have to say – a lucky one.  I also loved how they included all the pop culture references and political stuff too.

All in all, the movie was kinda slow, nothing really happened and it was super long (like 3 hours) but I enjoyed seeing this kid grow up before my eyes and as a teenager myself I could relate to some stuff.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys-mbHXyWX4

Rate 3.5/5

Photos: Google Images