Movie Review: Boyhood

posted in: Movie, Review | 2

Imagine for a moment that the film Boyhood did not take place over a twelve year period. Imagine instead that the film’s director, Richard Linklater, filmed the movie over three months, and that instead of using the same children and watching them grow over the course of those twelve years that he used several different children of different ages, all playing the children at various periods of time in their lives. Imagine also that makeup, and not the tangible passage of years, accounted for the aging of the adults.

Imagine all that and ask yourself what you really thought of the movie. Was there a plot? Character development? How significant were the selected vignettes? What changes in character did they prompt?

Movie Review: Boyhood
Movie Review: Boyhood

I know what you’re saying: “That’s the point, you uncultured boob. Don’t you get it? By showing us the mundanity of our existence, we connect with the universal! Our lives are all like the lives of the people in this movie. Showing it helps us to transcend the mundane and the trivial, and connect with our common humanity. Our lives are all mundane and go nowhere.” Like this movie?

Nothing happened.

For three hours, nothing happened.

We saw a mother who made bad choices with men. How original. An absentee father? Of course. Every Hollywood movie now has an absentee father (or none at all, if they can help it). The two kids? Both went to college. What a climax. Incredible.

As a resident of Austin, home to director Richard Linklater, I should feel guilty about slagging this film, but I don’t. My wife and I sat through the entire three hours. At the end, both of us looked at each other and said, “That’s it?”

Yes, that was it. The twelve years passed, the movie ended. Nothing happened. Nothing.

I question the whole project. I’ve always felt that films, typically two hours, occasionally three, almost nonexistent beyond, don’t lend themselves to the extended passage of time that Boyhood tries to represent. Television miniseries work well for this duration, but not mainstream movies. It’s next to impossible to compress twelve years into a three hour film.

This was a well-intentioned project, but one that had no well-defined goal at all. To show a life? Okay, mission accomplished, but it doesn’t make a movie. Give me a plot. Give me character development. Or give me… death? No, thanks, just popcorn. What did you think?

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2 Responses

  1. Jim McPerrottiBurtness

    Bob, are you KIDDING me? What about when the ship finally went down in that freezing sea with them clinging to that railing!? What about the scene with the horse’s head and the bed? Or when the daughter elevates above her bed and her head turns in that full circle? This movie was incredible. What these boys witnessed was shocking.

    I think you and the Mrs. need to start timing your potty breaks and your trips to the snack bar with a little less frequency.

    • Robert

      Ah, it’s all coming together. I was wondering why the sea captain riding the decapitated horse was holding the little girl. It’s all clear now. Too much necking in the back row!

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