Film Of The Week:

Richard Linklater is rightly garnering a lot of attention for this genuinely unique film. The only work that’s comparable in any way is Michael Apted’s 7 Up series, where he catches up with the same group of people every seven years, but that’s documentary and this isn’t. Linklater created a fictional story centring on one boy and got the same group of actors to come together for a week each year over 12 years so that we actually see all of the characters grow and age. 

That’s quite a feat but it doesn’t necessarily mean the film is worth watching. Luckily in this case, it is. Linklater has brought us some very watchable films (the Before Sunrise trilogy, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, School of Rock), and if you like his style, you’ll appreciate the subtlety and lack of formulaic plot points in Boyhood. 

Although the title obviously refers to the boy, the parents and his older sister (played by Linklater’s daughter, Lorelei) are very much the focus as well. Rosanna Arquette and Linklater regular collaborator, Ethan Hawke, are wonderful as the divorced parents, Olivia and Mason. We watch their evolution over the years, with Olivia trying her hardest to be a good mum but making some very dubious choices about the men in her life. Mason is the cool dad lacking in responsibility but who tries to do the right thing by the kids he sees only occasionally.

Then there’s the boy, Mason junior, with Ellar Coltrane giving an amazing performance considering his parents signed him up for 12 years when he was only five years old. The film is edited in such a way that we suddenly find ourselves looking at him with a new haircut or several centimetres taller or sprouting facial hair without any signposting that time has passed. By the film’s end, he’s a young man of 18, which makes his mother’s emotional outburst about the passing of time and expecting more from life seem more than a little poignant. 

The film is pretty long – 165 minutes – and is very episodic by nature, so you have to prepare yourself to just go with the flow. It’s been a big hit at Sundance and other film festivals and offers filmgoers something very different and quite fascinating. 

by Vicki Englund