By Mia Fatuzzo ’15, News Section Editor
Boyhood, a 2014 film depicting the maturation of Mason Evans Jr. and his family over the course of twelve years, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. The film has since garnered five Golden Globe wins, six Academy Award nominations, and one Academy Award win for Patricia Arquette. I first saw the film in the summer of last year. I was reluctant to go; the film runs at 165 minutes and initial summaries described it more as documentary than drama. A persistent friend dragged me to the theater with promises of Greaters afterwards. Three hours later, as I stepped onto the noisy Ludlow Avenue, I was so captivated by Masons story that I nearly forgot about the ice cream.
The film opens in 2002. Six-year-old Mason (Ellar Coltrane) lives with his mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette), and older sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), in small house in Texas. His parents are newly divorced and his father, an aspiring musician, visits only sporadically. The film chronicles the efforts of Olivia and Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke ) to not only care for their two children but also move on with their individual lives. At the close of the film, Olivia has endured two more divorces. A matured Mason Sr. has remarried. As his parents narratives play out, Mason grows up. He navigates friendships, teachers, stepparents, and girlfriends. That the film details scenes from the Evans lives so closely lends an intimacy to the narrative. We dont observe every aspect of Masons childhood, but, as we watch an exhausted and aggravated Olivia shove a pillow between her boisterous children on a long drive or a unashamed Mason Sr. give Samantha and Mason an impromptu birds and the bees talk at a fast food restaurant, we feel as if we have.
Boyhood was directed, written, and produced by Richard Linklater. Fifteen years ago, Linklater decided to start working on a movie which would film annually for a few weeks for twelve years. He wanted to tell the story of a child from elementary school to college, but retain the freedom to adapt his story as the child matured. Linklater retained Hawke, Arquette, Coltrane, and his daughter Lorelei and started filming. He didnt have a completed script he had outlined only a plot and an ending. Instead, Linklater wrote the script for each years filming by watching the previous years footage.
The film initially feels vast, even vague. However, a final scene provides theme. Mason is driving to college, across the Texas dessert, in an old truck, as Family of the Years Hero blares on the radio: Let me go / I don’t wanna be your hero / I don’t wanna be a big man / Just wanna fight like everyone else. Boyhood doesnt tell an extraordinary story. Its characters possess neither the courage of Unbrokens Louis Zamperini nor the intellect of The Imitation Games Allen Turing. They are simply relatable. Masons story is a series of short films a bad haircut, a bully, a painful breakup. Boyhood is the story of anyone who just wants to fit in.