Boyhood

Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater)

Is Boyhood a 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 she fails in choosing the right husband, Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), must pass through the difficulties. His father (Ethan Hawk) seems to be lovely and the radical critic of contemporary politics, but his chaotic lifestyle and sense of irresponsibility prohibit him from being a true father figure. Finally, he marries a woman whose father and mother are probably religious. They even give a Bible and Gun to Mason as 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 at 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 the 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 in working 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 in satisfying the audience in many ways, the acting style and the formalistic structure of the film's narrative foreshadow the flaws and failures that prohibit us from calling it a masterpiece.




Review by Morad Sadeghi