Boyhood is a 2014 American epiccoming-of-agedrama film written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. Filmed from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans Jr. (Coltrane) from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents (Arquette and Hawke). Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei plays Mason's sister, Samantha.
Production began in 2002 and finished in 2013, with Linklater's goal to make a film about growing up. The project began without a completed script, with only basic plot points and the ending written initially. Linklater developed the script throughout production, writing the next year's portion of the film after rewatching the previous year's footage. He incorporated changes he saw in each actor into the script, allowing all major actors to participate in the writing process by incorporating their life experiences into their characters' stories.
In 2002, 6-year-old Mason Evans lives with his divorced mother, Olivia, and 8-year-old sister, Samantha, in a small town in Texas. Mason overhears Olivia arguing with her boyfriend, saying she has no free time due to parenting. The following year, Olivia and the children move to Houston so she can attend the University of Houston to get a better job.
Mason's father, Mason Sr., visits Houston in 2004 and takes Mason and Samantha bowling. When he drops the children off at home, he argues with Olivia while Mason and Samantha watch from a window. Olivia takes Mason to one of her classes, and introduces him to her professor, Bill Welbrock; Mason sees them flirt.
In 2005, Olivia and Bill have married and blended their two families. They share experiences such as playing video games and attending a midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Mason and Samantha are enrolled in the same school as their step-siblings, Mindy and Randy. There, Mason befriends Nicole, who has a crush on him.
The next year, Mason and Samantha bond with their father as he takes them out for a day in Houston, culminating in a Houston Astros game and a sleepover at his house. Olivia continues her education and is initially supportive of Bill's strict parenting style, which includes many chores for the children and an enforced shaving of Mason's long hair.
In 2007, Bill gradually becomes abusive and violent towards Olivia and the children due to his alcoholism. After he assaults Olivia, she moves out with Mason and Samantha to a friend's house and files for divorce while her step children stay with their father, since Olivia is unable to locate their biological mother, facing an uncertain future.
Next, when Mason Sr. learns that Samantha has a boyfriend, he talks to her and Mason about contraception. Then on a camping trip with his son, they connect through music, film, and Mason's blossoming interest in girls. The teens have grown into their lives in San Marcos, a town close to Austin.
In 2009, Mason is bullied at school and playfully teased on a camping trip but starts receiving attention from girls. Olivia takes a job in teaching psychology at college and moves in with Jim, a student and Iraq War veteran.
The next year, Mason is now in high school and experiments with marijuana and alcohol. Mason Sr., who has remarried and has a baby, takes his kids to visit his wife's parents. For Mason's 15th birthday, Mason Sr. gives him a suit and CDs; Mason's step-grandparents give him a Bible and a shotgun.
In 2011, Mason is lectured by his photography teacher, who sees his potential but is disappointed by his lack of ambition. He later attends a party and meets Sheena, who becomes his girlfriend. After Mason arrives home late one night from a party, a drunk Jim confronts him about his late hours. Olivia and Jim subsequently break up, and the family's financial situation worsens.
The following year, Mason and Sheena visit Samantha, who is attending the University of Texas at Austin, where they share their hopes and fears about college. Samantha's roommate discovers them asleep together in her dorm bed.
In 2013, towards the end of Mason's senior year in high school, he has a painful breakup with Sheena, wins the second place silver medal in a state photography contest, and is awarded college scholarship money. His family throws him a graduation party and toasts his success. Mason Sr. gives him advice about his breakup.
Planning to sell the house and downsize, Olivia meets Samantha and Mason for lunch and asks them to sort through their possessions. Later that year, as Mason prepares to leave for college, Olivia breaks down, disillusioned by how quickly life has passed.
At Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Mason moves into his dorm and meets his new roommate Dalton, Dalton's girlfriend Barb, and Barb's roommate, Nicole. Mason is given an edible by Barb, and the group goes hiking at Big Bend Ranch State Park. Nicole shares with Mason her belief that, rather than people seizing moments, moments seize people; Mason agrees.
In May 2002, Linklater said that he would begin shooting an untitled film in his home city of Houston that summer.[8] He planned to assemble the cast and crew for a few weeks' filming annually for 12 years. He said: "I've long wanted to tell the story of a parent–child relationship that follows a boy from the first through the 12th grade and ends with him going off to college. But the dilemma is that kids change so much that it is impossible to cover that much ground. And I am totally ready to adapt the story to whatever he is going through."[8] IFC, the film's distributor, committed to a film budget of US$200,000 per year, or $2.4 million over the 12-year shooting period.[9]
Casting
Linklater hired the six-year-old Coltrane to play the boy.[10][11] The cast could not sign contracts for the film due to the De Havilland Law, which makes it illegal to contract someone for more than seven years of work. Linklater told Hawke that he would have to finish the film if Linklater died.[12][13]
Filming and writing
Ellar Coltrane portrayed the film's protagonist, Mason Jr.
Boyhood began filming without a completed script. Linklater had prepared each character's basic plot points, and the ending—including the final shot—but otherwise wrote the script for the next year's filming after rewatching the previous year's footage, incorporating the changes he saw in each actor. All major actors participated in the writing process, contributing their life experiences; for example, Hawke's character is based on his and Linklater's fathers—both Texan insurance agents who divorced and remarried—and Arquette's character is based on her mother, who resumed her education later in life and became a psychotherapist.[13]
Despite the unconventional screenwriting process, Linklater stated that he had a general storyline in mind, and that the actors did not change the general direction of the story:
People think I asked Ellar, "What did you do in school the other day? Let's make a scene about that!" That never happened. The time we spent together was me just gauging where he was at in his life—what his concerns were and what he was doing. Then I would think, maybe we could move the camping trip up, and we can do this or that.[14]
Scripts for certain scenes were sometimes finished the night prior to shooting. According to Hawke, the discussion about the possibility of additional Star Wars films is "the only honest-to-god improvised moment in the movie".[13] The cast and crew gathered once or twice each year, on varying dates, to film for three or four days. The production team spent approximately two months in pre-production, and one month in post-production each year.[15] When Arquette became the lead on the TV series Medium, she filmed her scenes over weekends.[13]
Hawke said in 2013:
It's Tolstoy-esque in scope. I thought Before Sunrise was the most unique thing I would ever be a part of, but Rick has engaged me in something even more strange. Doing a scene with a young boy at the age of seven when he talks about why do raccoons die, and at the age of 12 when he talks about video games, and 17 when he asks me about girls, and have it be the same actor—to watch his voice and body morph—it's a little bit like time-lapse photography of a human being.[16]
Although Linklater had referred to the project as Boyhood during the early years of production,[10] in 2013 he settled on the title 12 Years, but was forced to rename it due to the release of 12 Years a Slave the year prior.[9] In consideration of the possibility that the actors' circumstances or availability might change over the extended period of production, Linklater also had observed that the film potentially could also have been named Motherhood, Fatherhood, etc.[17] Hawke was amazed that the producers "still had their job" at the film's completion, despite "(having) to hide a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for over a decade while we slowly made this movie".[12] Despite the risks, Linklater was allowed an unusual level of freedom with the production, never having to show IFC the work as it progressed.[9]
Costume designer Kari Perkins had to review each year's footage to ensure there were no accidental repetitions and to create a "flow" to the costumes.[18]
When discussing shooting format in an interview, Linklater discussed how insistent he was on shooting 35mm film:
We very intentionally shot in the same way throughout, just to get a unified look. 35mm negative is about the most stable thing you could shoot on. We kinda had that from the beginning. I remember it not even being a question. You know the HD formats, I didn't really like them very much at all. I'm just not warming up to them. But they change a lot. The film would have six different looks if we tried to keep up.[19]
Boyhood premiered theatrically on July 11, 2014, in a limited release in four theaters in North America and grossed $387,618, with an average of $77,524 per theater, ranking number 19 at the box office. The film expanded the next week to 34 theaters and grossed $1.2 million, with an average of $34,418 per theater. The film's wide release occurred on August 15, opening in 771 theaters and grossing $2 million, with an average of $2,584 per theater and ranking number 11. The film's widest release in the U.S. was 775 theaters. The film ultimately earned $25.4 million domestically and $32 million internationally for a total of $57.3 million, against a $4 million production budget.[3]
Critical reception
Boyhood has an approval rating of 97% based on 335 professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 9.2/10. Its critical consensus reads, "Epic in technical scale but breathlessly intimate in narrative scope, Boyhood is a sprawling investigation of the human condition."[20]Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned Boyhood a score of 100 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[21] It is the highest rated of all films reviewed upon their original release on the site,[22] and one of only nine films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.[23] It also holds the highest number of reviews for a film with a score of 100.[citation needed]
Patricia Arquette won Academy, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, and SAG awards for her performance in the film.
A collection of 25 French critiques on AlloCiné, including those from Le Monde and Cahiers du cinéma, indicates wide approval, with an average score of 4.0 out of 5.[24]
Many critics singled out Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke's performances for praise. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said that watching Arquette was "like watching a generation's hopes and struggles, presented by an actress with a fullness of emotion, and yet with utter matter-of-factness".[31]Michael Phillips, writing for the Chicago Tribune, lauded Arquette's "lack of pretense or affectation as a performer".[32] Dana Stevens of Slate called Hawke's performance "Superb".[33] Indiewire, while ranking Ethan Hawke's best performances, felt that "Ethan swerves away from that easy route and instead digs down deep to create this portrait of a man who's flawed but committed to growing, or at the very least doing the best he can today and hoping he'll be able to do so again tomorrow".[34]
Ethan Hawke received his fourth Academy Award nomination for his performance.
Boyhood also earned the admiration of other filmmakers and artists. Director Christopher Nolan named Boyhood as his favorite film of 2014, calling it "extraordinary".[35] Writer-director Mike Leigh, while accepting a fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2015, called it "the definitive independent film".[36] Writer Joyce Carol Oatestweeted her support, saying: "It is rare that a film so mimics the rhythms and texture of actual life as Boyhood. Such seeming spontaneity is a very high art."[37] Poet and critic Dan Chiasson wrote in a contribution to The New York Review of Books: "This is a great film, the greatest American movie I have ever seen in a theater. It is great for what we see, but it is even greater for its way of making real what we cannot see, or for suggesting that what we cannot yet see we might one day see."[38] According to CanadianphilosopherHoward Adelman, "[Boyhood] is Huckleberry Finn for the twenty-first century, for it is only Mason Jr. who retains his honesty, integrity and sense of decency throughout ... a masterful movie not to be missed."[39]Alejandro González Iñárritu, winner of the Academy Award for Best Director in 2015 and Linklater's fellow nominee, said that when he watched Boyhood, he sent an email to Linklater and thanked him for giving "this incredible gift".[40]
Other critics reacted less positively to the film. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan described it as "at best, OK" and one whose "animating idea is more interesting than its actual satisfactions".[41] Sam Adams of IndieWire argued that the unanimous praise for Boyhood is bad for film criticism, as it tends to marginalize the analysis of critics who disagree with the majority; Adams further elaborated that masterpieces are not made "by unanimous praise, but by careful scrutiny".[42] Richard Brody of The New Yorker listed the film at the top of a year-end list he called "The Negative Ten", a list of films with "significant merit", but that also "occluded the view toward the year's most accomplished and daringly original work".[43]
Several reviewers questioned the film's underlying racial assumptions. Writing for The Atlantic, Imran Siddiquee noted: "While Linklater and the character of Mason can choose not to see it, dialogue about race is happening all around them and affecting their lives and experiences." Siddiquee also took issue with the apparent absence of non-white characters, particularly Latinos: "In this tale of a white family living in a state that borders Mexico, isn't it strange that the only time they're shown truly interacting with a Spanish-speaking non-white individual is when they are saving them from a life of manual labor?"[44] Teo Bugbee, of The Daily Beast asserted: "As a treatise on the essential vacuity of the white liberal male, Boyhood is a staggering achievement. As a portrait of childhood in America, it is incomplete enough to be irresponsible."[45] Jaime Woo, of The Daily Dot, took issue with critics who identified the film as a portrait of "normal" Americans, asking: "More than one reviewer noted how impressive it was to capture these "ordinary" Americans: In fact, Salon's Andrew O'Hehir used the word three times in his review. So what does it mean when "ordinary" in 2014 still passes as the white experience? When the questionable treatment of ethnic minorities as props for the white characters nary raises a flag?"[46]
Year-end lists
The international film magazine Sight & Sound named it the best film of 2014 after polling an international group of 112 film critics.[47] Both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes listed Boyhood as the best-reviewed film of 2014.[48][49]Village Voice Film Poll voted Boyhood as the best film of the year.
Boyhood appeared on more critics' annual "best-of" lists in 2014 than any other film, including the most first-place votes.[50][51] According to CriticsTop10.com, it was included on 536 lists and topped 189 of them—with the latter being a record by that site's count.[52]
In a 2016 poll by BBC Culture, critics ranked Boyhood as the fifth greatest film since 2000.[97] The film was also named the eighth "Best Film of the 21st Century So Far" in 2017 by The New York Times.[98] In 2019, The Guardian ranked the film 3rd in its 100 best films of the 21st century list.[99] In 2021, the film was ranked at No. 91 on Time Out magazine's list of The 100 best movies of all time.[100]
Yeah, we've got a ton of behind the scenes stuff. We made this in the era where everyone has a digital camera so we unearthed an interview from year one with Ellar, Lorelei, Patricia and myself, Patricia interviewed me in 2002. I hadn't seen this since we shot it, Ellar had forgotten quite a bit of it but he got to see himself as a wide-eyed six year old. For people who like the movie, I think there will be a lot of cool little treasures.
On August 21, Variety reported that Paramount Home Media Distribution had acquired the U.S. home entertainment rights for DVD, Blu-ray and digital distribution. IFC Films will retain VOD and EST sales as part of the deal.[102] The film became available on Digital HD on December 9, 2014, and was released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 6, 2015.[103] The Criterion Collection released a special edition of the film on Blu-ray and DVD on October 18, 2016.[104]
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, author, and film director. He made his film debut in Explorers (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in Dead Poets Society (1989). Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy from 1995 to 2013. Hawke received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014) and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Other notable roles include in Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Maggie's Plan (2015), First Reformed (2017), The Black Phone (2021), and The Northman (2022).
Patricia Arquette is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and has starred in many film and television productions. She has received several awards, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016); and the romantic comedy Hit Man (2023).
Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and co-written by Linklater and Kim Krizan, and is the first installment in the Before trilogy. In the film, Jesse and Céline meet on a Eurail train and disembark in Vienna to spend the night together.
Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, from a story by Linklater and Kim Krizan. It is the first film by Warner Independent Pictures. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and the second installment in the Before trilogy, Before Sunset follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy) as they reunite nine years later in Paris.
The 49th National Society of Film Critics Awards, given on 3 January 2015, honored the best in film for 2014.
Before Midnight is a 2013 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), it is the third installment in the Before trilogy. The film follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy), now a couple, as they spend a summer vacation in Greece with their children.
Ellar Coltrane Kinney Salmon is an American actor. They are best known for their role as Mason Evans Jr. in Richard Linklater's film Boyhood, for which they won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Young Performer.
The 80th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2014, were announced on December 1, 2014 and presented on January 5, 2015.
The 14th New York Film Critics Online Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2014, were given on December 7, 2014.
The 19th San Diego Film Critics Society Awards were announced on December 15, 2014.
The 35th London Film Critics' Circle Awards, honouring the best in film for 2014, were announced by the London Film Critics' Circle on 18 January 2015.
The 13th San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2014, were given on December 14, 2014.
The nominations for the 15th Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2014, were announced on December 22, 2014. The winners were announced on January 5, 2015.
The Black Album is an unofficial compilation album of solo material by members of the British rock group The Beatles. It was created by the American actor Ethan Hawke, and became widely known as a result of its inclusion in Richard Linklater's 2014 film Boyhood. Hawke compiled the record to give to his daughter Maya on her 13th birthday in 2011, including personalised liner notes; it was then incorporated into Boyhood in scenes shot later that year, with Hawke's character giving it to his son as a birthday present.
The 13th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were announced on December 8, 2014.
The 10th Austin Film Critics Association Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking for 2014, were announced on December 17, 2014.
Boyhood (Music from the Motion Picture) is the soundtrack album to the 2014 film of the same name directed by Richard Linklater. The album, released on July 9, 2014 by Nonesuch Records, consists of 15 songs from popular artists recorded and released during the 2000s and early-2010s, that are compiled by Linklater and music supervisor Randall Poster. The film features more than 50 songs that are not included in the album.
↑ Manohla Dargis (July 10, 2014). "Movie Review: Boyhood". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 31, 2014.
↑ Richard Brody (December 11, 2014). "The Best Movies of 2014". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on January 1, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2014.
↑ Siddiquee, Imran (September 10, 2014). "Not Everyone's Boyhood". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on December 9, 2018. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
↑ Peter Bradshaw (December 12, 2014). "And the Braddie goes to ..."The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ A.A. Dowd (December 18, 2014). "The 20 Best Movies of 2014". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ David Edelstein (December 9, 2014). "The 11 Best Movies of 2014". New York. Archived from the original on December 9, 2014. Retrieved December 9, 2014.
↑ Bill Goodykoontz. "Top 10 Movies of 2014". The Arizona Republic. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ Eric Kohn (December 8, 2014). "The Best Films of 2014". Indiewire. Archived from the original on December 26, 2014. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
↑ Mick LaSalle (December 25, 2014). "Mick LaSalle's Top Ten". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on December 30, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
↑ Michael Phillips (December 18, 2014). "Best and worst movies of 2014". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on December 31, 2014. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
↑ Robbie Collin (December 15, 2014). "The five best films of 2014". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on December 19, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ Rex Reed (December 17, 2014). "The Best Films of 2014". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ Christopher Orr (December 22, 2014). "The Best Movies of 2014". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on January 1, 2015. Retrieved January 1, 2015.
↑ Peter Rainer (December 17, 2014). "The 10 best movies of 2014". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
↑ David Denby (December 13, 2014). "The 10 Best Movies of 2014". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on December 14, 2014. Retrieved December 18, 2014.
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