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Epic in technical scale but breathlessly intimate in narrative scope, Boyhood is a sprawling investigation of the human condition.
All Critics (304) | Top Critics (63) | Fresh (295) | Rotten (9) | DVD (1)
Like Michael Apted in his Seven Up! documentary series, Linklater makes you feel as if you're watching a photograph as it develops in the darkroom. Oct 11, 2018 | Rating: A | Full Review…
Like Michael Apted in his Seven Up! documentary series, Linklater makes you feel as if you're watching a photograph as it develops in the darkroom.
Chris Nashawaty
Calling it a sum of its parts can be a backhanded compliment, but it feels like especially worthy praise for Boyhood, considering how much went into making it feel whole. Sep 22, 2016 | Full Review…
Calling it a sum of its parts can be a backhanded compliment, but it feels like especially worthy praise for Boyhood, considering how much went into making it feel whole.
David Sims
We can quibble with small stuff in Boyhood. Supporting performances are variable, the sister drops out as a dramatic character ... I could go on. But the cumulative power is tremendous. Jan 2, 2015 | Full Review…
We can quibble with small stuff in Boyhood. Supporting performances are variable, the sister drops out as a dramatic character ... I could go on. But the cumulative power is tremendous.
David Edelstein
While everything about Boyhood is done with extraordinary care, the master stroke was clearly the casting, 13 years ago, of a little Texas boy named Ellar Coltrane. Jan 2, 2015 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
While everything about Boyhood is done with extraordinary care, the master stroke was clearly the casting, 13 years ago, of a little Texas boy named Ellar Coltrane.
Jocelyn Noveck
It's like a time-lapse photo of an expanding consciousness. Jan 2, 2015 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
It's like a time-lapse photo of an expanding consciousness.
Liam Lacey
Cinema has always been the best place for time travel, but rarely has it been so anchored in reality than in Richard Linklater's Boyhood. Jan 2, 2015 | Rating: 5/5 | Full Review…
Cinema has always been the best place for time travel, but rarely has it been so anchored in reality than in Richard Linklater's Boyhood.
Kate Muir
Only a sliver of every frame of this film is "fiction," and sometimes it seems the least important part. Mar 20, 2019 | Full Review…
Only a sliver of every frame of this film is "fiction," and sometimes it seems the least important part.
Dan Chiasson
Linklater's script eloquently captures the ordinariness of life, his ability to extract first-class unforced and natural performances from his cast and said cast's wholehearted commitment to the project. Mar 4, 2019 | Full Review…
Linklater's script eloquently captures the ordinariness of life, his ability to extract first-class unforced and natural performances from his cast and said cast's wholehearted commitment to the project.
Paula Fleri-Soler
A once-in-a-generation-type film, a groundbreaking endeavor that is impressive on every possible level... I really would like to visit these characters again at some point again in their lives because it feels like you are part of the family. Jan 24, 2019 | Rating: A | Full Review…
A once-in-a-generation-type film, a groundbreaking endeavor that is impressive on every possible level... I really would like to visit these characters again at some point again in their lives because it feels like you are part of the family.
Micheal Compton
Boyhood spanned everything and nothing in 2014's most joyous examination of the passage of time. Jan 7, 2019 | Full Review…
Boyhood spanned everything and nothing in 2014's most joyous examination of the passage of time.
Tara Judah
[A] soul-bearing, intimate and genuinely uplifting...once-in-a-lifetime coming-of-age film. Epic is an understatement. Dec 30, 2018 | Rating: A- | Full Review…
[A] soul-bearing, intimate and genuinely uplifting...once-in-a-lifetime coming-of-age film. Epic is an understatement.
Kiko Martinez
The filmmakers spent 12 years making it, so it's only fair that you give three hours to experience it. Nov 1, 2018 | Rating: 9/10 | Full Review…
The filmmakers spent 12 years making it, so it's only fair that you give three hours to experience it.
Jennifer Heaton
A fascinating and extremely captivating project shot over the course of twelve years to follow a boy from his childhood to his late adolescence, and what is most impressive is how fluid it always is even with a fragmented nature that doesn't rely on a defined plotline.
Super Reviewer
A charming drama that amuses and captivates the audience and takes them on a journey of growing up, love and heartbreak. Fantastic cast and beautifully done!
This movie takes a while to settle in with its grand scale yet tiny scope. There is a beginning, a middle and an end, that's almost the only way to sum up this movie. The acting and directing are good, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get bored at times during the nearly 3 hour runtime. Linklater makes very uneventful but thought provoking movies, and this is no exception. In the end however, I feel like there are better ways to spend 12 years of a directorial career.
After his parents divorce, a boy grows up in Texas. I really wanted to love this film; going into it, I was prepared to call it the best film of the year and maybe even the best film of the decade. After all, Richard Linklater accomplished a technical feat - making a major motion picture over twelve years - that has never been achieved in American cinema. And this kind of film is right up Linklater's alley, small-scale, human interest drama. However, the film never gets going. I kept wondering what the primary conflict was. Is it just growing up? Could that carry a three-hour film? Not really. And when Mason grows up to become an anti-establishment hipster, we see that Linklater returns to his familiar character types. In Linklater films, there are two characters: the sell-outs and the anti-establishment types, and when Mason starts spouting the normal Linklater speeches about the "over-determinedness" of modern life, I knew that the film was only an achievement of the technical variety, not a real expansion of his artistic palette. And while "anachronistic" is not the right word, there are numerous references to the flavor of the times in which the scenes were shot - Britney Spears songs and Harry Potter book signings - that work as the filmmakers winking at the audience and saying, "Look at what was hot during this time." The best performance in the film belongs to Patricia Arquette whose final moment is chillingly heart-breaking. Overall, if you know the backstory, Boyhood is a heck of a film, but if we just ignored that the film was shot over twelve years, it wouldn't be that much to write home about.
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