Jonathan Dodd shares a review of this current film. Guest reviews do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
There’s an extraordinary and unique film showing at the moment in cinemas. It’s called Boyhood. We saw it last night.
There has never been a film like this. The writer/director Richard Linklater wanted to make a film about a boy growing up during his school years. The usual problems arose, with the need to find different actors to portray the same character over so many changes, and it seemed an impossible thing to do.
A completely crazy idea
But Mr Linklater imagined a completely crazy idea – to make the film over twelve years with the same boy actor and all the same cast. He found a six-year-old boy called Ellar Coltrane to play the boy Mason, and persuaded several actors to commit to several weeks for twelve years. He cut the odds a bit by casting his own daughter as Mason’s sister.
The film is extraordinarily convincing and moving, as we see Mason and his parents over the years dealing with the same kinds of things that happen to all of us. There are divorces and moves to new towns, the adults are all flawed in some way as we all are, relationships flare and burn out, and people change, sometimes for the better and sometimes a lot worse.
Doesn’t feel like a film
Through the whole nearly-three-hour film, there’s Mason, living through it all, growing up physically from a little boy to full manhood, taking it in and learning from it.
This doesn’t feel like a film. You sit down and start watching, and you live it with the characters, as they talk and argue, and they’re so familiar with each other that it all seems natural and vividly lifelike. Scenes set several years ago were actually filmed several years ago, and have a reality that normal films can never reproduce.
I’ll eat several of my hats
All the actors are extraordinary in it, especially Ellar Coltrane himself and Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette playing his parents, and so many small parts are played unforgettably by people I’ve never heard of before. There are moments of extraordinary power and some of pure genius. It’s a film I already know I’ll want to watch again and again.
This film is a gamechanger. It could have gone wrong in so many ways, and it was extraordinarily risky. Twelve years is a large slice of anyone’s life, and everyone managed to turn up every year despite their other commitments. Mr Linklater is a genius, and I’ll eat several of my hats if it doesn’t win lots of Oscars. I doubt I’ll watch such a tremendous film for the rest of the year, maybe the rest of the decade.
Just go and see it, if you possibly can. It will live with you for a long time afterwards.
