Boyhood
Cast: Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane,
Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater
Writer/Producer/Director: Richard Linklater
Running time: 163 min
Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater
Writer/Producer/Director: Richard Linklater
Running time: 163 min
A quite extraordinary film, shot over the course of eleven years, 'Boyhood' seems like a condensed amalgamation of all Linklater’s “Before” films. As viewers, we witness the young Mason (Ellar Coltrane) gradually maturing from a youngster of six years, all the way and through his growing-up, to his first day at college. The subtle time shifts are hinted at with contemporary songs of each year we touch on. It is a unique and quite brilliant concept, as Linklater used the same actors over the course of this time period. The title is a little inappropriate though, as the feature covers a great deal more than simply Mason’s growth, with substantial coverage of the family dynamic alterations that organically affect these pivotal years in his life.
As the film opens it does take some time for the chemistry to establish as everyone seems a little rough around the edges. However Ethan Hawke as Mason’s father excels here by injecting real heart and humour into the film – and suddenly we flash forward in time and everyone is slightly older and there are new characters on board. By now, (a couple of years in real and film time), all the ongoing actors seem a great deal more comfortable and have a genuine grasp of Linklater’s vision. While it’s Hawke who saves the film at the start, the true star here is Ellar Coltrane in the main role. Through his eyes we feel and experience most of the developments and it was quite a brave decision to hire a seven year-old boy – and inform him that he’s going to make a feature film over the course of his entire adolescence and that it will in the main be about him. Thankfully Coltrane not only pulls it off, he fully embraces the role and puts in a series of tremendous performances.
The saga opens in 2002 and ends in the present day. Linklater jumps ahead in time throughout with nothing more than a simple cut, but quite quickly we can tell that time has moved on usually via a radical hair-style change or a pop culture reference. Mobile phone models change, musical cues which are a little obvious, but it seems to be the video games that are the focus. Everything on screen though is the natural progression through technological stages of the time.
What 'Boyhood' excels at most though, is its basic humanity. It is an intensely honest and genuinely emotional work as we experience so much with everyone and none of it feels forced, mechanical or dishonest. Marriage, divorce, alcoholism, new boy/girlfriends, new jobs, school, betrayal, that first kiss, sibling rivalry, parental disillusionment and even something as mundane as a hellish haircut. We’ve all been there. Everyone has had different experiences and are in different stages of life, so everyone’s sense of empathy and sympathy will be varied. The brilliance in Linklater’s vision and work is that it just feels so real and natural.
The running time (almost three hours) may appear excessive to some before sitting down, but I assure you, as you’re watching these people’s lives blossom and mature, real time will seem to rush by – and the denouement is that the ending is perfect.
Begin Again
Cast: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo
Director: John Carney
104 mins
Director: John Carney
104 mins
A suicidal man walks into a pub and over a large glass of the hard stuff, suddenly becomes aware of a pretty young woman singing a maudlin song about not killing yourself.
He is smitten by her performance, which, is, quite frankly, bordering on the mediocre. However, whilst managing to blag a drink from her – his decision becomes clear through the fog of booze – that he feels he simply has to become her manager. As it happens, he is a washed-up A&R man on the hunt for some career-reviving talent - and to his eyes and ears she is precisely that, despite her not unnatural hesitance. If at this point your Plotline Contrivance sensor lights up – join the club,
"Begin Again" is overburdened with cliches – and despite excellent performances from Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley, the script is utter piffle. It's a romance about music, and an unattainable bohemia. There is, it has to be said, one quite charming, gentle sequence in which the two take a long late-night walk through New York, sharing a pair of headphones and a constantly changing soundtrack although provided by a seemingly inexhaustible battery-fuelled iPhone (where did they find such a device?!)
Ruffalo's bright idea is to record Knightley's album on the street, with ambient sounds, and the spontaneity that only New York can apparently offer to the proceedings. To add to the corny cringe count, there's even a sudden, improvised group of street urchins who join the musicians, and sing in wonderful harmony.
If unlike myself, your tolerance for such tosh is quite high then you may find this to be relatively enjoyable fluff. As for myself, the main issue I have with the film is the pitifully naff songs. They’re so bland, utterly inconsequential, contrived and insufferably duff - and none of them bear even a passing relation or relevance to anything even remotely current or contemporary - and as a result of aspiring (and dismally failing) to be 'now', are utterly embarrassing. In addition to the fact that this feature is so peurile, it is always a dicey prospect for film when tackling the contemporary music industry for source material, as styles, genres, tastes, formats and demographics are so transient, that unless it's a deliberate period piece, when the film is eventually released it's automatically dated.
To pile on the misery here, they’ve even cast the dreaded Maroon 5’s Adam Levine (conveying about as much screen presence and charisma as an unflushed toilet) as a squirmingly hideous alleged rock icon Thomas Kohl, Knightley’s lost love. No young girls in any frame of mind would scream at this idiot, unless in horror.
The whole film misfires on so many levels. There‘s bad plotting, ridiculous continuity errors (check Levine’s beard, it switches from glued-on to naturally grown, then off entirely), through dismal character under-development to misjudged cameos (James Corden, Cee Lo Green). It really is such a pity that the excellent leads were encouraged to participate in this nonsense.
