MARILYN PENN: A REVIEW OF THE MOVIE “BOYHOOD”
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The greatest thing about movies is their ability to conflate reality with illusion, not just regarding special effects but in convincing us that actors are the characters they portray on screen. Movies made us believe that John Wayne was a war hero though he never served a minute in combat; we believed that Vivien Leigh, a neurasthenic, fragile British beauty was a southern belle with enough pluck to get her hands dirty in Tara’s soil; we believed that Rock Hudson was the ultimate lady’s man who enjoyed the many love scenes that he played with the screen’s sexiest women.
Through the combination of screenplay, cinematography, music and all the other elements that fascinate us despite the proliferation of oversized tv screens and ubiquitous personal gadgets, we remain enthralled by the great art form of the 20th century. So it is with enormous surprise that I note the unanimous rating of 100% critical approval on Rotten Tomatoes for a film that is the antithesis of this pretense, a return to the most literal of presentations instead of the most illusory. I’m speaking of “Boyhood,’ Richard Linklater’s lengthy, often plodding film about an American family seen through the life of a boy from the age of six until his freshman year at college. The gimmick that has tickled all the critics was the use of the actual actors as they aged over the course of twelve years. The director, refusing to avail himself of the usual tricks of the actor’s and cinematographer’s trades, simply waited until the characters really grew up and kept returning to shoot them in their real time. Since this isn’t a documentary, this versimilitude doesn’t amount to anything more than minor admiration for the director’s extreme patience in getting this project done. As I watched the movie, I thought that even if these children growing into adolescence had been in my own home movies, I would have been sufficiently bored by their banality to use an editor’s discretion to liven things up.
As an admirer of Linklater’s previous movies with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight), I was struck by the missing quality that distinguished those movies from this one – charm. Delpy and Hawke played off against each other with conversation that had intelligence, wit and sparkle; even though the movies were scripted, they had the feel of spontaneous combustion between people whose twosome had emotional and physical chemistry. In “Boyhood,” there is the promise of some spark in the early footage of a sassy young Lorelei Linklater playing the petulant older sister to a six year old Mason – the title boy. By the time she ages into adolescence, her characterization is symbolized more by her hair morphing into shades of pink, red and henna than by her dialogue which becomes as spare and monotonous as the other teenagers in this film. The three other main children who comprise the blended family are taciturn and frankly, boring. We are looking at America’s mediocrity which may be a valid subject but not when it becomes celebrated and not when the movie ends with a song about diminished ambitions that takes on the aura of an anthem instead of a dirge.
This is a movie about the disintegration of the nuclear family in late 20th century America and its reconstruction into various other templates of what passes for family life in the 21rst. The observations are valid and Patricia Arquette inhabits her role fiercely as the mother, who despite her determination to provide a better life through education, keeps making the same horrific choices for husbands. The repetition of this behavior loses us the third time around. That her children don’t become more traumatized by these experiences is unbelievable but this movie isn’t really interested in the psychodrama of merged families – in this particular case, the close relationships between the four children and their own behavior are more reminiscent of 50’s tv series than the much harsher reality of today’s troubled youth and the more likely consequences of being raised by a mostly absent father replaced by a violent, alcoholic one. Mason, the cental character looks like a young Scarlet Johanssen as the movie begins but becomes less appealing as he grows older and his features swell. We are meant to believe that he has talent as a photographer but this is such an internalized trait that it hardly makes much difference. He’s a young man who, unlike his volatile and voluble parents, never says much. Perhaps he’s meant to be the director’s stand-in, the budding artist who absorbs everything but will take his time and go his own way in finding his calling. Many of the biographical details of Linklater’s life are present in this film, from the Texas setting to the parents who separated when he was 7, to his mother’s teaching profession and subsequent marriage, to his ambivalence about school; but since artists routinely draw on their own experiences, it would be presumptuous to assume that Linklater is the only model for Mason.
The movie takes almost 3 hours to tell us that life goes on despite some searing events and that people remain connected or reconnected in various incarnations. We are used to seeing this material in soap operas or tv series where we engage with characters for half an hour a day or an hour a week. The novelty here is pouring it into one overlong movie that has too little humor or excitement to lighten the tedium of what’s being depicted. Some critics have called this movie profound yet no new insights are proferred and the magical elves that young Mason was searching for in real life never materialize in this film. What we learn is that there are natural wonders in our world and some high moments of accomplishment are possible – also some moments that are artificially enhanced by drugs. Mostly, there’s the the daily routine of trying to earn a living and raise a family under difficult circumstances for average people whose personalities and quotidian ideas may not hold your interest through twelve long years of growing up.
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