Fish and Cherries Productions

Boyhood perfectly encapsulates the slice of life genre, as this is a look at Ethan’s dysfunctional boyhood and adolescent life (with excellent use of events and media of the years to provide the time markers). None of the character are one hundred percent perfect and at the end, you wonder how much, if any, they’ve truly changed. But that’s life. On another note, a lot of the comedy (perhaps all of it) is cringe comedy or awkward comedy, like you laugh, but feel uncomfortable for doing so. It’s just as well, as very little in Ethan’s life is comfortable. From abusive stepfathers to uncomfortable friend situations, Ethan goes through a lot and throughout the film, you notice that he doesn’t assert himself a lot. People tend to pressure him into decisions or make them for him. You think this is going to pay off at the end in some big speech or confrontation, but it doesn’t. In fact, not many of the things brought up in the movie have a payoff later. But again, that’s life and in a weird, horrible way, it’s beautiful. And that’s what keeps you going through the movie, the bits of beauty throughout this young man’s life. Fair warning, though, there may be a few trigger images and scenarios in there, so some people should approach with caution. On another note, I would just like to address what a miracle it was that they started filming this boy at a young age and he happened to grow up to have enough similarities to Ethan Hawke that he could conceivably be his son. The only flaw some people might see is that the film is very long, clocking it somewhere over three and a half hours, but I didn’t mind in the slightest. Boyhood may turn out to be the best movie of 2014 by years end. Some people may find some of the lines pretentious, but of all the things said in this movie, someone will find some philosophy or life lesson that resonates with them. And that’s life.