Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)

Is Boyhood  a really good film? The focus of the film's narrative is the transformation of a naïve boy, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), into a college student whose sense of self and maturity are particularly received by the critics as the refusal of the parental mistakes. His observations as an observant aggravate the sense of humor, playfulness, irritation, futility, and entrapment. In the beginning, his mother(Patricia Arquette) is a devoted and responsible character who fails in finding the right mate. Because of her failures in choosing right husband, Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), have to pass through the difficulties. His father(Ethan Hawk), seems to be lovely and the radical critic of contemporary politics, but  his chaotic life style and sense of irresponsibility prohibits him from being a true father figure. Finally, he marries with the woman whose father and mother are probably religious. They even give Bible and Gun to Mason as the gifts of his birthday. In contrast to the earlier sequences, it seems that Mason's mother and father are going to grow up and become matured. His father becomes more responsible to the end of the film and his mother accepts her loneliness and learns to live with her solitude(Without husband).

However, the film is not a masterpiece. Linklater's lack of style and visible manifestation reassure us that the film is hardly capable of offering us a stylistic insight. The simplicity of narrative, style, and characterization sometimes produce opposite effect. It looks as if the whole sense of complicated confrontation between boyhood and adulthood is lost among the philosophical dialogues or educational remarks. The poor acting and lack of strong mise-en-scene not only cast doubt on the characterizations and the visual style but also have negative impact on the film textual surface. Moreover, the dialogues sometimes have flaws and Samantha's character is going to lose its importance in the middle of the narrative. 

 Of course, in contrast with the director's earlier films, Boyhood is still a better film. The coherent structure of the narrative which emphasizes the relativity of truth in everyday life and the director's success to work with children which makes the first part of the film unique are substantial. Also, the majority of critics believe that  Linklater succeeds in creating a narrative which is simple but profoundly complicated. They even consider his lack of style and simplicity of narrative the specific techniques used  to bring up the complex subjects in the simplest way to the screen. Though the film succeeds to satisfy the audience in many ways, the acting style and the formalistic structure of the film's narrative foreshadow the flaws and the failures that prohibit us from calling it a masterpiece.




Review By Morad Sadeghi