Boyhood (or 12 Years a Boy)

Nothing is more annoying in life than getting wind of a critically acclaimed film, before discovering that no cinema was showing Boyhood. The film industry's glib response to Richard Linklater's 12 year long project is to prevent anyone from seeing it. But thankfully, last weekend I outwitted the tyranny of traditional Hollywood film-making and discovered Boyhood playing at The Red Carpet in Burton-upon-Trent, quite possibly the smallest cinema in the world.

Mason has a lie down and ponders existence

cinema is willing to show it (apart from possibly war, famine and death). Such is the case with
The fact that anyone has devoted 12 years of their life to create one film is astonishing in itself. Yet Linklater, along with leads Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke came back every summer for over a decade to produce this gorgeous film. Boyhood communicates the wonder of childhood, the passage of time and the burden of parenthood in a way that could never have been achieved in any other format. Ellar Coltrane (who plays Mason, the eponymous boy) changes from a six year old with his head in the clouds to a philosophical 18 year old photography student. But perhaps just as astonishing is the change in his parents from idealistic twenty-somethings to domesticated adults.

Mason tries not to covet his sister's hair

Linklater, who both wrote and directed, has captured both the joy and pain of an ordinary suburban childhood in the US. Fleeing the home of a drunken and violent step-dad is counterbalanced by a painfully awkward fatherly education on contraception that had the whole cinema in hysterics. The characters are actual people, generally well meaning but deeply flawed, rather than the simplistic stereotypes all too common in traditional cinema. There is no plot, but life has no plot! Different narratives weave in and out of the epic twelve year span. The traditional milestones of first girlfriends, flirtations with alcohol and drugs and deciding upon one's future are all duly ticked off, but it never feels like a run of the mill check-list for the generic childhood.  Boyhood is both highly specific, about one child at a particular period in history, and universal. It is the story of post-9/11 America and the vast changes that took place in the Noughties, but it's also the story of all of our childhoods. Without being overly nostalgic or seeking to idyllicise childhood, the film acknowledges that six to eighteen is a vastly transformative and important period of our lives, and one cannot help smiling when seeing Mason grope through the confusion of puberty and emerge with a definitive idea of who he wants to be.

The many faces of Ellar Coltrane

It is a tragedy that films such as Guardians of the Galaxy are played in cinemas simply by virtue of the amount of money invested in them, whilst cinematic masterpieces like Boyhood are destined to be seen by a fraction of the audience it deserves. But I have no doubt that Boyhood will become a cult classic. At two hours and forty minutes there is not a moment that does not contain acute observations, mundane tragedy or vibrant humour. In short, definitely in the running for the best film of 2014.