There’s a movie opening this weekend on a handful of screens in New York and Los Angeles. It’s a movie that you may not have heard of, but it’s one that everyone will be talking about for the rest of the year and a long time to come.
Richard Linklater, best known for his “Before” trilogy, has been working on the same movie for 12 years, three or four days at a time. That dedication resulted in something wholly unlike anything that’s ever hit the big screen before, and it’s the reason everyone will soon be talking about “Boyhood.”
If you haven’t heard, “Boyhood” is a fictional movie that feels real because we watch the characters age over the course of 12 years. It focuses primarily on Mason, played at the beginning of the movie by 7 year-old Ellar Coltrane, but we also peer in to the lives of his sister and divorced parents. Over the course of nearly three hours, we watch him age and simply live life.
Nothing that happens in Mason’s life is extraordinary, but watching him grow and go through familiar experiences is extraordinarily fascinating.
With 94 reviews tabulated, “Boyhood” is currently sitting at 100 percent fresh on RottenTomatoes. The universal critical acclaim, combined with its one-of-a-kind production will undoubtedly lead to serious Oscar buzz. If Linklater doesn’t get nominated for Best Director, some unfathomably good movie will have to have come out between now and the end of the year.
So be sure to check out “Boyhood” as soon as you can, because before long it will be at the top of your list of movies to see before the Academy Awards next year.
Kevin P. Sullivan
Writer/editor for MTV. If it involves cowboys, spies, or hitmen, I’m there. All three would be ideal.
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