Coming of age movies have always been popular and continue to be released in surges on streaming platforms. These films focus on specific milestones, like going to prom or graduating from High School, and send a subliminal message to the young people of the world that these are the moments we live for. The 2014, highly acclaimed film Boyhood is a coming-of-age movie shot in an experimental way that captured the world’s attention once announced and released. Richard Linklater in many interviews talked about watching his own kid grow up and feeling inspired to make a movie about childhood. Linklater soon realized that just capturing a small period of life doesn’t capture the fullness growing up and aging feels like. That’s when he decided to shoot the film over the course of 12 years, casting his 8-year-old daughter, Lorelei Linklater, as Samantha, and 6-year-old Ellar Coltrane, as Mason. Samantha and Mason in the film are the children of divorced parents: Mason Sr. and Olivia, played by Ethan Hawke, and Patricia Arquette who won an academy award for her role. On this broad, cinematic landscape, the film presents as a contemplation on memory, growing up, aging, and what makes life meaningful.
I wouldn’t say this film isn’t concerned with engaging the audience, but I would say that this movie requires a different level of attention that may be hard for some viewers to give it. When showing this film to groups of people, I always received some comments from some who had felt at the end that “nothing happened.” The film doesn’t follow a traditional plot line, but functions as a kind of bullet train that you hop on and look out the window to see the lives of this family progress moment by moment, year by year. In reality, a lot, can happen on film that can captivate without any car chases or planes dive bombing each other. I am reminded of Fred Rogers’ statement when he said, “I think it’s much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger. Much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire.” Though I don’t agree with his criticism of on-screen violence, I think he illuminates a truth that drama can be found in what we consider mundane and ordinary about our everyday lives.
Just as Linklater isn’t concerned with a traditional plot, he prefers nuanced characters that can’t be put in categories that viewers can verbally proclaim their love or hatred for. Instead, the characters in this film are human, making mistakes, achieving success, and being forced to grow and adapt to life. Olivia struggles to keep herself and the kids afloat while on the brink of poverty and holds all the responsibility while Mason Sr. has been in Alaska since the divorce. Olivia is seen as the one whose freedom has been infringed on yet rises to the challenge of working to improve their life. Mason Sr. is seen as being immature, free-spirited, and unanchored as he returns to make up for lost time, filling days with however much excitement will wash away his past sins.
Olivia remarries twice, both to alcoholics, which result in worse financial and emotional conditions for the family. At the same time, she gets her master’s degree and becomes a professor of psychology, inspiring students and fostering community. She has the characteristics of the hard-working parents who are critical of the “fun” parents for not working hard to measure up to societal ideals. On the day Mason is leaving for college, a flood of emotions leaks out of Olivia as she says through tears, “You know what I’m realizing, my life is just going to go. Like that. This series of milestones. Getting married. Having kids. Getting divorced. The time that we thought you were dyslexic. When I taught you how to ride a bike. Getting divorced…again. Getting my master’s degree. Finally getting the job I wanted. Sending Samantha off to college. Sending you off to college. You know what’s next? Huh? It’s my f***ing funeral! Just go, and leave my picture!” Mason replies, “Aren’t you jumping ahead by, like 40 years or something? Olivia says, “I just thought there would be more.” We see through this rant that Olivia is struggling to know who she is now that she’s not a mom with kids at home and wrestling with what gives life meaning after the milestones have been reached.
Mason Sr. also went through trials of his own, being a late bloomer in terms of maturation, and initially abandoning his kids. Many people used to see traditional characters in movies immediately place him into the “deadbeat Dad” category. He quickly rises above this when he pulls his car over and delivers an enlivened speech about wanting to have deep conversations with his kids in which Mason fires back, saying, “But Dad, I mean, why is it all up to us though? You know, what about you? How was your week? Who do you hang out with? Do you have a girlfriend? What have you been up to? He goes after breaking down the boundaries that divorced parents often feel are put around them and goes after connecting with his kids. Mason Sr. eventually begins working for an insurance company, trades his GTO for a minivan, remarries and has a new kid.
It is important to understand that this film is all shown from Mason’s viewpoint. From the opening frames we see Mason looking deeply at the clouds, dead birds, and hear that he’s been “staring out the window all day” at school. He engages deeply with introspection, trying to process life as it happens. Mason watches his parents’ lives and struggles to find his own way forward. As 12-years go by in 2 hours and 45 minutes, we could think of the events in the film as the things Mason remembers about his life. Mason remembers the major negative and positive milestone events in his life, such as: his abusive and alcoholic stepfathers, who cut his long hair off and made fun of him painting his nails, being bullied in school, his first, serious break up, and graduating High School. On the other hand, the film is full of the in-between moments, such as: camping trips and long conversations with his dad, lectures from his teachers and boss, nostalgic videos games, a Harry Potter premiere, and when his Dad joked that he was going to give the GTO to him (which Mason Sr. forgets). By Linklater showing all the moments alike, it’s like he’s asking the audience the question, why do we remember what we do? “What’s the point…of any of this, everything?,” as Mason says to his Dad after his graduation, still reeling from his breakup. Mason Sr., someone who’s lived three of Mason’s lifetimes, delivers a simple, yet poignant answer, “I sure as shit don’t know, neither does anybody else, we’re all just winging it.” Mason is too caught up in this single moment to realize all the meaningful moments of his life, just like the existentialism his mother expressed in her monologue.
If Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette weren’t in this film and someone stumbled upon this piece of work while scrolling channels on the tube, it’s possible they would think it was a documentary. With no special makeup or prosthetics to cover the acne, fat, or hair sticking up in the back, the character and events in this film feel real. The events pass by quickly as time feels, but I want to make sure to say that I don’t think a takeaway is that life is short and fleeting. I hate this common phrase and hate the anxiety it causes people to “seize the moment.” The girl Mason meets at college acts like Linklater’s oracle in the last scene of the film, where she offers her belief that “the moment seizes us.” What does this mean? Maybe it would do us all some good, just like it would do Mason and Olivia some good if they could step back and view the entirety of their life like a film. Perhaps, they would see all the little moments in-between the milestones and begin living life more intentionally and presently. What makes life meaningful is not the happiness we feel in positive moments and the milestones we reach and achieve. Those are fleeting. All the moments that we live are meaningful and offer us chances to feel, think, change, create, grow, etc. Maybe it would do us all some good to view our life in its entirety and examine our motives behind the criteria we have determined makes for a good life or a good film. If the moment is going to seize us, how can we become present to it? How can we become present to our lives?
