Boyhood, Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater’s film Boyhood is compelling. Not only do the characters age before you, but its narrative drive nets more than one ‘hood.’ This is a film about mothers, fathers, sisters and grandparents. It’s not the first film to show the passage of time as we watch Mason Jr aged six mature into college student, but there are rich contexts both political and cultural. In his young leads, Ellar Coltraine and daughter Lorelei, Linklater makes a neat parallel to the child actors in the Harry Potter movies who go through a similar, maturation experience. Linklater documents the seminal moment when childhood crashes into adolescence, as Mason declares after the launch of The Deathly Hallows there is no elves’ magic. From the opening shot as young Mason looks up to the sky the film is shaped by his perception of what he sees; and he looks at life from different angles. This response is as much part of him as shaped by the fallout from his estranged parents’ experiences, played by Patricia Arquette, and Linklater stalwart, Ethan Hawke. This is the film’s masterstroke. Boyhood is a metaphor for life and the human instinct to always march doggedly forward.......