Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Boyhood Blu-ray Movie Review

Life.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 5, 2015

In a time when cinema novelty has been replaced by the proverbial cookie-cutter approach to filmmaking, when bigger and better special effects and sound mixes appear to be all that's differentiating one movie from the next, when film as a medium for personal reflection and a look at the greater human condition has given way to films made only to max studio revenue, when the cinematic art form seems all but lost, along comes a movie like Boyhood. It's richly creative and always intoxicating, determined to do something with the medium and for the audience that extends beyond raw commercialization, that hopes to renew one's faith in the movies and capture the essence of what art is all about. Director Richard Linklater's (Before Midnight) 12-year project that follows one boy's growth into young adulthood has indeed revitalized a medium that's becoming increasingly transparent and devoid of purpose beyond selling tickets, moving Blu-ray discs, and streaming digitized entertainment. It's a beautifully simple concept and a movie that most will find works better after the fact, leaving viewers with a sense of satisfaction not for having seen it but rather for having been enriched by it, reflecting not on its technical specifications but instead its amazing ability to replicate life with such flowing, effortless precision that ultimately turns its lens upon its audience, asking viewers to look back on their own lives and see in the movie their own portrait, one that's certainly not the same but one that shares with it a tangible, simple similarity across the unpredictable arc of life.

Dreaming of tomorrow.

There's not a real, single, identifiable plot to Boyhood beyond "the journey of life." The film depicts some specifics, however, across the grade school, middle school, and high school years of a person named Mason (Ellar Coltrane). He's younger brother to Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, daughter of Director Richard Linklater) and the son of a broken family. His father (Ethan Hawke) cruises around in a vintage GTO and takes his son camping and to Houston Astros baseball games. His mother Olivia (Patricia Arquette) continues her education, marries one of her professors (Marco Perella), and must deal with the consequences of an alcoholic and increasingly abusive man in her children's lives. As Mason grows older, he takes an interest in girls and moves on from playing his Nintendo Wii to starting a burgeoning career as a photographer, all the while living through a revolving door of stepfathers and finding inspiration from the few people outside of his family who seem to care about his future, including his photography teacher and his boss at a restaurant where he busses tables.

The film is, in fact, quite adept at depicting "life." Even as many audiences may not be able to relate to all of it, chances are everyone will connect with some element within it, but the film's beauty doesn't come from some amazingly relatable journey but rather through its surprisingly full and rich depiction of a single life, one person's experiences through the journey most all of its viewers will have already experienced. It doesn't aim to capture the details of childhood so much as it aims to recreate the spirit of childhood. The 12-year project yields a film that runs under three hours; needless to say the picture's aim isn't to depict every ebb and flow but find a combination of high and low points intermixed with casual one-off sort of moments that might not be life changing but that do mold it -- as every moment does in some large or small way -- and build upon the body of experiences that define Mason's maturation beyond numbers on a calendar. That said, the movie does follow a fairly linear path, often failing to take risks with its character, but one can argue that such a journey is actually a strength in the greater context rather than a weakness. It shows that Mason is nobody special, at least not in the typical dramatic arc sort of narrative. Instead, he is everyone, exploring life through the prism of the environment in which he is placed and through the shared experiences, good, bad, and indifferent, of those who share that space with him. That's the film's real brilliance. It doesn't aim for drama, it aims for life, and while drama does frequently flow from life, the film's adherence to building through reality -- scripted reality, but believable reality -- rather than manufactured contrivances allows it to more naturally, fully, richly, and accurately depict its core subject of growth in the modern world.

The 12-year shoot, then doesn't so much simplify the story but rather grounds it, makes it more tangible, more believable, even if there are moments here and there when it's not particularly clear exactly at what age Mason appears beyond a range the audience can dwindle down based on context clues and where the movie has taken him. Again, though, a proper timestamp would seem to lessen the impact of authenticity; the film rightly cares more for the journey rather than particular points on the road, even though it's often those random points where the film makes its biggest impacts. After watching the film -- and Blu-ray makes this exercise ridiculously easy, fun, eye-opening, and mind-boggling -- skip to a random point in the movie, turn the sound down, even, and just watch Mason doing whatever he's doing, just for a moment. Maybe he's lying on the grass, daydreaming about what awaits him. Perhaps he's clicking through something on an old iMac at his school. Perhaps he's learning about focus and diligence in the school's dark room. Maybe he's dipping chips in tasty queso with a beautiful girl at an Austin diner in the middle of the night. With the greater context in mind, the simple act of soaking in random bits and pieces will further one's appreciation of just how well the movie builds its character through every individual moment and how each moment further increases not so much the narrative power but rather the picture's unflinching dedication to constructing life through moving snapshots. This exercise is like finding an old photograph in the bottom of a drawer, flooding the viewer with memories not simply or even necessarily of the moment but also everything that came before and everything that has come after. Each and every instance adds up to one thing, the full individual, where every experience along the way means something greater than the moment. The echoes of the larger whole, even the most mundane of them, reinforces better than even the entire thing (given an initial viewing first) just how smart and precise a film this is, one that's almost effortlessly capable of capturing life even if it's a life filled with experiences that greatly differ from those that shape any given member of the audience.

On the more raw technical side of the ledger, Boyhood proves a success, though certainly its finest is saved for the sheer pleasure in absorbing its special nature more so than appreciating the little technical tidbits that help the movie along. Linklater shot the entire picture on film over the course of the 12-year production, allowing for a necessary consistency in visual tone that keeps the audience in the movie and focused on its themes and characters rather than on changing styles, particularly some transformation to digital along the way. The performances are largely excellent, believably natural and remarkably consistent given the lengthy production during which the cast certainly worked on other projects, lived life, and aged. Ellar Coltrane proves more than capable as focal point Mason; his performance can be a touch flat near the end, but considering the portrayal of a young man just finding his way, a little reservation, a touch of hesitation, a feeling of self-exploration is not at all a hindrance to the part. What's more, he favors in-movie father Ethan Hawke so precisely by the end that it's a wonder he's the same actor as the one who played Mason 12 years earlier, or that he wasn't cast with his future appearance in mind. Whether it's a dab of makeup, the facial hair, the posture, the build, whatever it may be, the resemblance is uncanny and only further solidifies the film's tangible sense of realism. Hawke, too, is excellent. His path is a bit more linear and cleaner, for lack of a better word, than that required of Patricia Arquette, whose life takes significantly more hits and goes through many more changes along the way. Yet Arquette remains incredibly natural even as the character undergoes what is probably the most obvious transformation(s) beyond Mason in the entire movie. Perhaps the single best performance, however, comes from Marco Perella who plays Olivia's alcoholic husband.

Boyhood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Boyhood grows up on Blu-ray with a solid, but sometimes unspectacular 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. The film-sourced image retains a fairly consistent, though occasionally sharp, grain structure. Detail is handsome and steady but lacks the sort of lifelike clarity and pinpoint attention to detail seen on the very best film and digital presentations. It can go a touch soft in spots, too, but generally the image reveals suitably complex facial features, clothing lines, building façades, and other close-up elements. Green grass on a golf course and rougher outdoor terrain are likewise nicely defined and crisp more often than they are soft and smeary. Colors are even and pleasant, never richly robust but finding a good, positive accuracy across a myriad of lighting conditions, from low-light interiors to sunlit-drenched exteriors. Skin tones tend to ebb and flow with the light but tend to push warmer than expected. Black levels are imperfect but not to the point of distraction. Light crush and a minor push to purple are evident -- the Harry Potter book release is a good example -- and they can frequently become littered with noise in the darkest scenes. Additionally, the image suffers from some distracting pops and speckles which aren't frequent but do pop up on occasion, nowhere more noticeable than the darkroom sequence in chapter 11. Overall, however, this is an attractive film transfer that serves the movie well.

Boyhood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Boyhood features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The track is generally straightforward, dominated by dialogue throughout. The spoken word flows cleanly and accurately from the center, with no discernible flaws in clarity or intelligibility. Music is never fully immersive, favoring instead a front-end dominant presence. Still, accuracy is fine, clarity suffices, and spacing along the front feels full. The track produces some light ambient effects in places, including inside Mason's school, at a baseball game, or inside a bowling alley, all of which play around in the back channels but never to the point of full, effortless, realistic immersion. Nevertheless, this is a healthy, consistent track that handles a somewhat underscored presentation very well.

Boyhood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Boyhood contains a making-of and a lengthy Q&A. A DVD copy and a UV/iTunes digital copy voucher are included in the Blu-ray case.

• The 12 Year Project (1080p, 19:11): A look at the story origins, casting, the parallel stories and themes that run through the film, the shooting schedule, shooting on film, actor transformations throughout the shoot, the film's dramatic structure, and more. This supplement is itself almost a microcosm of the film seeing the cast -- and crew -- mature through the process.
• Q&A with Richard Linklater and the Cast (1080p, 52:38): Richard Linklater, Lorelei Linklater, Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, and Ehtan Hawke speak at length about the film's details, including its tone and feel, music, project origins and committing to it, characters and performances, and much more. From the Cinefamily Screening at the Silent Movie Theater, Los Angeles, California, June 15, 2014.

Boyhood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Boyhood is a remarkable and special film that breaks cinema convention not only thanks to its unorthodox shooting schedule but because of its incredibly accurate depiction of life. It uses the same actors to shape about a 12-year stretch in the life of a young boy who grows into maturity through a collection of what amounts to snapshots of his life, from elementary school to the beginning of his college career and life as an adult. It's incredibly consistent in tone and performance, an amazing accomplishment considering the on-and-off approach to the shoot. The film proves that there's still room for the cinema medium to grow beyond the tired constraints to which the industry far too often, and far too closely, adheres. If all is right in the world, Boyhood should walk away from the 87th Academy Awards as the night's big winner. Paramount's Blu-ray release of Boyhood features good video and audio. Supplements are unfortunately limited but should see more if the rumored Criterion Collection release comes to fruition. As it stands, this Paramount release earns my highest recommendation largely on the film's merits alone.