Filmed in chunks over 
a twelve-year period, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood captures what it was like to grow up as a middle class suburban white boy in the 2000s. As a middle class suburban white boy who was born in the early 1990s and grew up in the 2000s, I’m one of the rare few who might be overqualified to review this film. Full disclosure: unlike Richard Linklater or Boyhood’s protagonist Mason, I didn’t grow up in Texas, so results may vary.
I grew up, like many of you, during a time of great change on Planet Earth. The Internet was finally hatching from its great government-issued egg in the cloud. Finally, the world could be connected. Cell phones came into vogue and now you get your own phone before you even learn how to read. Finally, the world could be connected. And then Mark Zuckerberg either invented or stole the idea for Facebook (history hasn’t decided which yet). Finally, the world could be connected. The Internet is mankind’s greatest achievement and it can also be used to stream Boyhood, which is Richard Linklater’s greatest achievement, possibly. He’s had a lot of really fantastic films. Boyhood can stack up with the best of his current filmography, but how will it rank against his future films? Probably still pretty good.
My childhood was decent, all things considered. It was cast well and the plot never really got dull except for maybe one or two years. Boyhood is one of the best ways for my generation to feel like a kid again. Another great way is to cry for a couple hours while Nickelodeon plays on TV from the other room.
Audiences found much of Boyhood’s characters and plot to be realistic and relatable. Personally, I found the plot and characters of 2006’s A Scanner Darkly to be considerably more relatable. Linklater adapted the film from the eponymous Philip K. Dick novel and it features a very relatable dystopian police state and a United States reeling from the embarrassing failure of the War on Drugs.
The next paragraph contains spoilers for the ending of Boyhood, a movie which had a wide release seven months ago. If you haven’t seen it by now should probably not have read this far into my review. But now, little fruit fly, you’re trapped in my spider web. Keep reading.
In the final scene, Mason moves into his new college dorm room and meets his roommate, who without question and within minutes of meeting each other for the first time offers Mason psychedelic drugs before they run off to explore Big Bend Ranch State Park. (Perhaps Linklater intended this scene to be a lead-in to A Scanner Darkly.) Rumors persist of a deleted scene in which Mason reveals himself to be Officer Worthington, a young Texas police officer on a 12 year deep cover mission. The version of the film I saw did not include this scene.
FINAL SCORE: Boyhood gets an 8/10. The movie was engaging and innovative, but the last third of the film rings somewhat hollow as Mason’s character warps into a caricature. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette deliver memorable performances. Boyhood also makes a great double feature when paired with Boyz n da Hood.