Criterion Collection: Boyhood | Blu-ray Review

Director Richard Linklater managed in cinematic first in 2014 when he unveiled his long gestating project Boyhood, which filmed over the course of twelve years to deliver a bildungsroman in real time. The effect is quite surreal, allowing us to witness its actors age before our eyes as they revisited these characters for several weeks once a year over the past decade. Unveiled at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival as a secret screening in the following month at the Berlin Film Festival, the film went on to gross forty-four and a half million (over half from domestic box office) and was a frontrunner at the Academy Awards, snagging six nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director), taking home a Best Supporting Actress statue for Patricia Arquette.

Shot in 39 days over the course of 12 years, we meet Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as a six year old in 2002, living with his older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) and mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette). Their father, Mason Sr. (Ethan Hawke), divorced Olivia some time ago, and pops up unexpectedly from Alaska to visit his kids in Texas, where he plans to return to live sometime soon. It’s unclear why exactly Mason Sr. and Olivia divorced, but it’s immediately apparent that they were not well matched. Unfortunately, it seems Mason Sr. was one of Olivia’s better choices in men.

Going back to school in order to obtain a degree and provide a better life for her family, Olivia marries one of her professors who has two kids of his own. Their new stability quickly becomes a nightmare as the new step-dad develops into a violent alcoholic who is verbally and physically abusive. While she leaves him, Olivia eventually remarries again, this time after she’s out of school and established as a professor. Her next choice is a man that also shares a weakness for the bottle. As the children develop, Samantha moves off to college and we begin to focus more on Mason Jr., who begins to look more and more like his father. Meanwhile, Mason Sr. also gets remarried to a Christian woman and starts a new family.

The script, along with the performers, developed anew at each filming rendezvous, is enhanced by a dramatic impact in the stellar first half that is lacking from the more recent footage which depicts the later years of Mason’s adolescence. There’s a certain empathy we develop for these children and the unlucky-in-love Olivia, a mother trying to do the best she can while trying to make worthwhile romantic connections. In fact, it’s Arquette’s performance that becomes the captivating force. Hawke pops up here and there, though his contradictory mix of fool and wise man isn’t too unlike his role in Linklater’s Before trilogy, a project that usurps Boyhood in scope and quality.

Lorelei Linklater is also an enigmatic presence in the first half, though she’s mostly absent as Coltrane develops into a young man, an experience mostly so powerful to behold because we’re watching the same person portray different stages of one person encapsulated in one film, like if Truffaut’s Jean-Pierre Leaud films were compressed into one. And from a technical standpoint, Boyhood is a masterful achievement, especially for Linklater fans that can make comparisons to Linklater’s techniques with his other films that came out during various stages here. Toward the end of this film, drawn out dialogues come to resemble the Before films, expect, the problem is, where as we are so engaged in the story of Jesse and Celine from those films, Mason Jr.’s adolescence is rather uneventful. He’s rather lazy and unmotivated, though not without significant talent as a photographer. He has a relationship with a young woman that’s rather so-so.

Linklater’s soundtrack, (which might be subject to change since not all the right have been obtained), is also a distraction, particularly in its opening half when snips of period tracks from Blur and Sheryl Crow soar with non-diegetic uncertainty over the proceedings. However, this sometimes seems a more subtle way to evoke time period than several politically related conversations transpiring during the Bush administration years that seem a bit too pointed. But despite these minor diversions, Boyhood is a unique cinematic experience, not unlike Michael Apted’s 7 Up documentary series. While it may pale in comparison to the dramatic impact achieved with Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight, it’s a daunting piece of work and certainly a respectable achievement.

Disc Review:

As was previously ordained around the same time the title was initially released on DVD and Blu-ray, Criterion was destined to usurp control of the famous title, presenting this new 2K digital transfer in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Picture and sound quality are masterful, which includes a 5.1 surround soundtrack remastered from the original digital audio. The two disc set features one whole disc devoted specifically to extra features.

Twelve Years:
Criterion made this near hour-long documentary in 2015 as a chronicle of Boyhood’s twelve-year production, featuring on-set footage from cast and crew.

Memories of the Present:
John Pierson moderated this conversation between director Richard Linklater and actors Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane in with December, 2015 hour long bit recorded in Austin, Texas.

Always Now:
This half-hour conversation was recorded between Ellar Coltrane and Ethan Hawke in December, 2015 New York, speaking on their characters’ relationship and development in the film.

Time of Your Life:
Critic Michael Koresky wrote this video essay narrated by Ellar Coltrane and was produced by the Criterion Collection in 2015.

Through the Years:
Criterion includes this program, which features a selection of photos and audio from cast and crew lifted out of the book “Boyhood”: Twelve Years on Film, wherein on-set photographs taken by Matt Lankes over the course of the film’s production were published, along with writings by Lankes, writer-director Richard Linklater, producer Cathleen Sutherland, and actors Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, and Ellar Coltrane.

Final Thoughts:

Although Linklater managed to construct a successful fictional narrative using the same committed method Michael Apted has employed with his Up documentary series (which began in 1964 under Paul Almond), Boyhood’s technical achievements don’t completely blot out significant longeuers in the film’s final passages when this domestic drama about a boy eventually begins to feel as if it’s running on empty. Without a doubt, it’s still in a league of its own.

Film Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆