Review - Boyhood

Richard Linklater's "Boyhood", is simply, a timeless bubble in a contemporary storm, transcending the affluence of pseudo expectations that come from the notion of such a unique experiment : filming over a span of 12 years and bringing the episodes together to make an aesthetic feature film. Linklater, along with a talented (and immensely dedicated) cast, captures the intricacies of the aging of one boy, in a profoundly intimate family drama, that all the while, remains within the perspective of the boy, Mason Jr, played by the seemingly unmarred Ellar Coltrane. As the lives of the broken family unfold in the small town back-drop, the simple purity of the narrative paints each scene with the innocent sensitivity of Mason himself. His physical and emotional transformation on screen over more than a decade, as novel as that is in cinema, dissolves into Linklater's adamance to inspect the little aspects of his life that an ordinary story-teller may find less fascinating.

His direct narrative, beautifully plays with the clichés of parenthood and the repercussions of successive relationships on a family, with exceptional performances from Ethan Hawke (Mason Sr) and Patricia Arquette (Olivia). Albeit, Mason's most intriguing relationship, perhaps, is that with his elder sister, Samantha, played by Lorelei Linklater, as it gently evolves from a childish rivalry for space, into a mellow bond of two young adults. Another thing quietly disguised in the emotional expanse of the theme, is the painful defensive introversion of Samantha and Mason, as they accept and deny at the same time, the self-destructive adult drama they have to live with.

With Linklater's inventive choices of symbols to represent gradual cultural changes over time, and relationship progressions of well crafted characters, carefully woven into Mason's own apprehension of the world, "Boyhood" mildly blossoms into more than the sum of its parts. It is, however, ill advised to read too much into any review of this film. In the insightfully ironic words of a teenage Mason Evans Jr, "words are stupid".