Directed by Richard Linklater

It’s taken me more than a month to properly digest Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s twelve-year project, and I think my mind is relatively clear enough to be as objective as possible with how I felt. But probably not. Because that would void all reason for even writing this in the first place. I watched Boyhood literally an hour after wrapping production of my most recent short film, and soaking in a strange mixture of relief and overwhelming fatigue, I sat in the front row of the sold-out theatre and disappeared for three hours. I became so engrossed in the film in a way that it was actively bringing back memories from my own childhood, at an alarming rate. In watching someone age rapidly in front of your eyes, you can’t help but feel nostalgia for what seemed like years, but was literally only 25 minutes ago. I wanted to stay in parts of Mason’s life, if only to try and hold on to memories of my own past that I felt had slipped away all too quickly. A film that can make you feel time as a tangible property, as something to cherish and despise at the same time, is a film that will remain in history for a very very long time. It’s not perfect, but shit, who even knows what perfect even looks like.

A+