Twelve years ago, Richard Linklater got a crazy idea that didn’t involve 32 different mismatched viewpoints, a chance love affair repeated in time or superimposing animation over live footage. It did, however, include Ethan Hawke. We’ve all got our onuses. The coup? Director Linklater decided cinematically to update a fictional family steadily over the course of twelve years.
Each segment in the film is a slice in time. You’ll know almost instantly we’ve leapt forward (thankfully, there’s precious little in the flashback department) as the focus is mainly on youngster-turning-adultster Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he slogs through the morass of Boyhood.
Boyhood is an honest attempt at art, and succeeds for the most part. There is still a great deal of gimmick here. One year later makes every surrogate father figure look like a piece of crap. One year later makes you wonder why Patricia Arquette didn’t stick with the last hairstyle. One year later makes us wonder what mild passive-aggressive rebellious tack Mason is going to go with this time around. Mason is presented as an odd and thoughtful kid, one who is very bright, but tends to shun deadlines and authority. There might be a 
point here about what happens to broken home kids, but mostly I imagined Linklater sitting down with Coltrane every year before shooting and relearning his subject anew.
The best scenes in Boyhood are with biological father (Hawke). The weird part about that is Hawke hasn’t done important work in over a decade. It’s as if twelve years ago he really nailed this role as cool slacker dad, but he cannot rise beyond until this part is officially over. The most amazing element of this project, I feel, is not the scope or ambition of the work, but the ability to keep Patricia Arquette employed for twelve consecutive years. I think we can all agree that’s one heck of a feat.
The problem with Boyhood is simple — you’re gonna spend 80% of your attention on “what’s different from 15 minutes ago?” Whether it’s the kid going through puberty or what relationship is mom surviving or why does Ethan Hawke suddenly look like a porn extra, 
you’re gonna ask “what?” Not “why?” This is what you’re going to do. The movie is secondary. It’s a tremendous piece of work and probably the most innovative film I’ve seen in the past 12 years, and that and $20 will get you into Guardians of the Galaxy next door where actual lasting memories are made.
For all the ambition, this film is a bland-ish anomaly, unlikely to be repeated often, or ever. It’s a critic’s dream, but a producer’s nightmare. It won’t money bank and probably won’t last in your memory bank, either. Boyhood is the kind of film you analyze, not the kind you love.
Squeezing a decade plus two of behave
For a collection too highbrow to crave
The contractual wonder
Got me to ponder
“Is this a reality Twelve Years a Slave?”
Rated R, 165 Minutes
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater
Genre: Important film
Person most likely to enjoy this film: Historians
Person least likely to enjoy the film: Curmudgeons
