Boyhood (2014)

★★★

*** WARNING: This review contains SPOILERS!!! ***

I had such high hopes for this film, and I know it's getting rave reviews all around. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect from Richard Linklater, but I expected to be impressed. Of course, I was intrigued by the idea of main characters aging 12 actual years during the course of the movie, but that is pretty much where my fascination with the film ended.

First of all, I think the title is misleading. I expected the film to focus primarily on the boy. Mason probably did get the most screen time, but the movie could have just as easily been called Parenthood or Siblinghood. In fact, I thought Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke played the most compelling characters, and I was much more interested in them than in their two stereotypically reticent, angst-ridden, monotoned children. Moreover, I associate "boyhood" with childhood, perhaps up to age 12 or 13; I knew that this movie spanned 12 years, but I was surprised that the majority of the focus was on adolescence.

While it's true that in real life, people tend to have patterned behavior, I couldn't help but feel that Patricia Arquette's bad luck with husbands seemed forced. As a psychology student, and then as a psychology professor, shouldn't she have seen some red flags before marrying the men who turned out to be drunken jerks? We in the audience only saw snapshots, but I admit I assumed that both weddings occurred after a reasonable amount of dating time. Also, I found it odd that both marriages started as student-teacher relationships.

Also in real life, people tend to come and go. But when Patricia Arquette escaped from an abusive marriage with her two children, we didn't see the fall-out. After the family had bonded for several years, surely both the mom and her two children would have felt some sense of obligation to ensure the safety of the ex-husband's biological children! Apparently, one phone call to the biological mother and one phone call to social services was all that they felt was necessary. Whatever happened to those step-siblings? Didn't they care?! Even in real life, I think extensive follow-up would have occurred.

The one time we did see what happened to a supporting character was when the immigrant worker approached the family in a restaurant. I loved that - but the timing of the encounter seemed contrived.

Still, continuing with the assumption that the point of the movie was supposed to be its honest depiction of real life, I actually left the movie feeling depressed. This is what becomes of families? The sweet, curious, active little boy turned into a brooding, slow-moving, greasy-haired teenager who dabbled in recreational drug use. The vibrant, out-spoken young girl became a brooding young woman of few words and little personality, and she had an air of being perpetually stoned. Yes, they were, generally speaking, good kids, and Mason had a talent with photography, but they were not entirely inspiring as the face of America's youth.

The parents fared no better. Ethan Hawke was a free soul with an anti-establishment bent who couldn't pull it together to be a responsible family man, yet he was clearly a good father who loved his children. Even he ended up wearing khakis and settling down with a woman from a Bible-thumping, gun-toting family while his good friend Jimmy lived the dream of making music. And Patricia Arquette - she was the most depressing character. Towards the end of the movie, in a state of despair, she rattled off a list of her milestone accomplishments, and the last time we see her, she has her heads in her hands and she is crying, "I just thought there would be more!" Seriously. I suppose that rings true, but how totally depressing.

And what was with Mason's boss popping in for his graduation party!? How random was that.

Overall, I did not feel the connection to my own experiences or the sense of nostalgia that I was told I would feel from all the positive reviews. The most familiar scene to me was in the very beginning, when Patricia Arquette was driving while trying to keep her kids from fighting by telling them to put a barrier between them. That scene hooked me in, but then I never felt as invested again.

I can't help but wonder: Did this movie not speak to me because my childhood was actually non-standard compared to a "typical" American childhood?