Filmed over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater’s movie Boyhood is one of the best movies ever made.
The movie Boyhood is a story of growing up as seen through the eyes of a child named Mason (a breakthrough performance by Ellar Coltrane), who literally grows up on screen right before your eyes.
Starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as Mason’s parents and Lorelei Linklater (daughter of the director) as his sister Samantha, the movie Boyhood charts the rocky terrain of childhood like no other film has before.
Snapshots of adolescence from road trips and family dinners to birthdays and graduations and all the moments in between become transcendent, set to a soundtrack spanning the years from Coldplay’s Yellow to Arcade Fire’s Deep Blue.
Boyhood is both a nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting. It’s impossible to watch Mason and his family without thinking about your own journey.
Boyhood is one of the best movies ever made, by far. It is also one of the longest commercial movie releases, clocking in at 2 hours, 44 minutes.
It’s actually a sin that a major movie studio did not pick up the movie Boyhood, as its theatrical release – by IFC Films – a studio whose movies do not appear in the majority of big movie theater chains – is extremely limited.
