Boyhood (2014), R, ★★★★

Ellar Coltrane at age 6.

Hey, fellas, do you ever recount your memories when you were in the stage of boyhood? Do you remember the first time you went to the movies or go to your first baseball game? Do you remember your first date? One's boyhood chronicles something special in their life that showcases the ups-and-downs of reality in their inner circle and in the outside world. This movie is a testament of risk vs. reward as the filmmakers accentuate the single most important events in their life and undoubtedly the dodgy events in their life. What they have created is one of the most ambitious movies with the greatest reach I have ever seen.

The movie starts with Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) at age 6 who is the son of Olivia (Patricia Arquette), a single mother who rents a small house in Texas that works constantly balancing the struggles and her childrens' lives. His sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), is two years older and teases and taunts him and gets away with her shenanigans. Mason Jr. does a whole bunch of activities, some good and some bad, such as daydreaming, doing his homework but failing to turn it in, ride his bike and spray painting graffiti, and look at Victoria's Secret catalogs. Mason's mother tends to get carried away with her anger and is not hesitant to yell at her kids but she also cares about her kids by reading them bedtime stories.

As time moves on, Olivia tells Mason Jr. and Samantha that she wants to move to Houston to go back to school and get a higher paying job. They have no choice but is worried that his father, Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke) will not be able to find him who is working at Alaska. As they leave and paint the door over the pencil marks where Olivia measured Jr.'s height, he gets depressed and unresponsive as Mason Jr.'s friend waves goodbye.

The movie progresses as Mason Sr. comes to visit his children and take them out bowling where Jr. complains that there are no bumpers in the bowling alley with his father responding that there are no bumpers in life. As Mason drops off the children, Olivia gets upset at him for not being responsible enough and for not influencing their children to do their work and have a proper dinner.

Olivia goes to college and takes Mason Jr. with her as the professor, Bill Welbrock, who sort of flirts with her in front of her son. Eventually, Olivia and Bill marry with Bill's two children from his previous relationship. His strict parenting along with Olivia's methodical studying habits makes things complicated for Mason Jr. Bill's personality hides the fact that he is also a heavy drinker and abuses Olivia. Thus, the strict parenting in their domestic household makes things awkward when Mason Sr. picks up Mason Jr. and Samantha and they do not communicate with Mason Sr. As life progresses, Mason Jr. learns some virtues and sins along the way.

Mason Sr. (Hawke) getting along with his kids. 

I'm going to get the point: this is one of the most remarkable films I have ever seen about a boy's journey through not just his childhood, but his teenage years and his young adulthood. This movie is an artistic masterpiece envisioning one's life on-screen watching him grow up. What's more impressive is that the film took 12 years to film and it was a risky challenge to do to demonstrate how bold of a filmmaker the person can be. The movie is unlike anything I have ever seen because it does not require an agenda such as a necessary plot and Hollywood-like characters. This movie is about a life and that is basically the most important and essential element in any other movie and serves a purpose to make the final result come alive.

Ellar Coltrane is just phenomenal in this role which does not require too much from him to pinpoint the necessary and conventional changes of what the plot requires. It is true that during that the filming process that they made some events along the way and it is a masterstroke of ingenious filmmaking that goes to another level. It is almost like a documentary about a portrait of a young child growing up. The only other movie that I can think of, which is ironically a documentary, was Hoop Dreams where we see two Chicago kids who dream of being basketball players grow up in a span of 5 years. They went through different struggles in an urban neighborhood but it was poetic. This movie is in the same category.

Patricia Arquette delivers, in my opinion, her best performance up there with True Romance. She also provides an ambitious performance seeing also a mother grow up with struggles but also redeems herself by going to college and earning another degree and a higher-paying job. Lorelei Linklater is also realistic and uncanny and charming as Samantha by expressing and saying realistic and sometimes, minimalistic dialogue such as, when Olivia asks whether or not she wants to say something to Mason Jr. during his birthday, she only gives a thumbs up. Ethan Hawke also gives another great performance in his filmography as a normal father who did not go well with a mother but sometimes has to move on.

Richard Linklater has actually been one of the most dominant directors with Bernie, Before Midnight, and this movie. He has been one of the most artistic and realistic storytellers of our generation which his recent movies symbolizing relationships and showing life as a progress and also the struggles that any character goes through in his movies. The performances and the journey and the artistry that has gone behind this project has resulted as a deft and exquisite masterpiece pinpointing about every single event that is going on. It is quite an experience to watch an almost 3-hour movie witnessing that journey. It is going to be quite difficult to dethrone this film as the best film in the end of the year because I do not know I will see a better film than Boyhood this year.

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