I remember when I first saw Boyhood and experienced my adult self reliving echoes of my childhood. Many films remind us, trigger times in our lives, a whole array of comparable memories from just a sprinkle of film moments. With Boyhood, that nostalgia is far more fluent as the onscreen minutes and the years drift on by. We ought not to forget those times we share with ourselves from the realities we have walked through. They may often be fleeting in the scheme of things, but they are truly meaningful junctures of our lives.
From the opening frame of Mason staring up into the sky, through twelve years, to Mason being away from home and family with his potential new friends, Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood depicts elemental parts of life. Moments we kind of take for granted quite often. Or remember differently to someone else. Moments you tend not to see in cinema, but are around you all time. And always have been.
Forever a creative ambassador for the everyday conversations, Linklater poignantly captures these significant life events of all shapes and sizes in the extraordinary Boyhood. I’m sure you all have your favorite scenes that touched you. Here are 12 (of course, twelve, but could easily have been twenty, thirty more) smaller moments in the film that lingered with me back in 2014. And beyond.
MASON’S HOMEWORK
When Mason’s Mom hears he has not handed in many of his homework assignments, his response is that the teacher did not ask for them. It is an instant signal that our protagonist is merely a small boy at this point. And that children are likely more logical / satirical than we give them credit for. I was a sarcastic little shit at times too, somehow towing the line between all out clown and offending brat. Got away with some wit, may have gotten a clip around the ear for others. But that was – and very much is – a part of who I am.
WATCHING DAD LEAVE
After spending some quality time with their Dad, Mason and Samantha have to watch on as slightly irate mom has words with him. Kids can’t fully understand why adults fight, but the fact is, you just don’t want to see Dad leave, period. Especially without saying goodbye. Which hits hard for me looking back. I have spoken openly with my dad many times since then about that. Why he left. The adult pains I didn’t understand at 6 years old. That I don’t hold resentment towards him. We’re extremely close, always have been, though him being far away for a while when I was a child is a bemusing, desolate thing.
DRAWING THE LINE
It is soon apparent that Bill is a ticking time bomb. When he asks the Mom to back him up regarding the kids not completing their chores, she does compliantly, but she also feels it is relevant for him to see that he may be too strict. The scene also shows us that Samantha is developing that rebellious teenage attitude. I’ll never fully engage with how much I changed once the teen suffixed my age, but the relationship I had with my own mother was often grizzly and lacking affection from then on. And as my dad moved on and remarried, it was never in doubt that the stepmother was, and is, as wonderful as they come.
POLITE CONVERSATION
One of the great Linklater-esque scenes. Dad does not want idle chit-chat with his kids, so implores them to be detailed in their telling of recent life events. Samantha obliges him, but he amusingly comes unstuck. Even more so when Mason turns his theory back on him and his personal life. Dynamics, of course, will change between child and parent over the years, but it’s a different level when one of the parents is no longer a part of the full-time unit. I became naturally inquisitive about my dad and his new life, happily have him influence my taste in music and movies. And in turn, the parent will want to know even more about the trivial stuff I did, no matter how important.
STAYING OVER AT DAD’S
Mason and Samantha are staying at Dad’s messy house (he lives with Jimmy), but the kids seem less concerned about his lifestyle than he may himself be a little bit embarrassed about. He is later reassured by his daughter’s sense of humor and assurance she may not fall asleep with the earphones in her ears. That’s right, you don’t really find harsh judgement in your dad’s new surroundings, but boy oh boy do they worry that you would. And being that kid away from home, sleeping over at dad’s and that clandestine notion that the rules might be a little more lax, is quite magical.
KEWL HAIRCUT
When Mason is forced to have his hair cut (it was really long), you have to feel for him. He pretends he is ill so he does not have to face the other kids at school laughing at him – which they kind of do. When Mason receives the note passed around the class that Nicole thinks his hair “looks kewl” his smile tells us he is over the haircut already. Nicole is also the name of the girl Mason sits with in the very final scene. My oh my, don’t tell us that we don’t get self-conscious as kids. For when we do, it is enourmous. Worrying about what other kids might think or say when you change your hair (or clothes), and getting all wobbly when you start caring about what certain girls think – sounds real familiar to me.
MOM DOES NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS
The final scene with Mom when she breaks down is the one most folks talked about, but much earlier in the movie when they are finally rid of Bill, Mom bursts into tears when she can’t answer her daughter’s concerns. You truly feel for a mother who is heartbroken that she does not have the answers right now. I remember times (all too often I might add) that my own mother broke down, cried, yelled, expressed her frantic, unhappy moments. It was more so than anything else a very humbling experience and unfathomable jolt to the heart.
SAMANTHA HAS A BOYFRIEND
Also one of my favorite scenes. Dad is bemused to learn more about Samantha from her Facebook page than their interactions. Realising his daughter has a boyfriend, Dad’s open advice about the risks of teenage pregnancy only embarrasses the poor girl. They are interrupted by Tammy, a young woman Dad is dating. The smug look Mason gives his dad as Tammy leaves is priceless. There was no social media in my childhood days, so this really aided my introverted nature in hindsight. My dad was generally encouraging when it came to girls – and sometimes overly crude – but I didn’t really allow both parents to know about that. Incidentally, one of the very first girls I asked out was also named Tammy.
BOYS GO CAMPING
Mason gets some male-bonding time with Dad as they go camping. They talk generally about kissing girls, Star Wars, and peeing on camp fires. The real magic of this sequence is how comfortable they appear to be as they catch up on the parts of their respective lives they may have missed thus far. Never went camping with my dad, but there was one particular week away that was a treasured memory of my childhood. At the time there’s no agenda in discussion, but there certainly is a kind of behavioural liberation from both parties.
MASON WALKS WITH JILL
Not exactly a plot turning scene, but crucial all the same, when Mason runs into Jill on her bike, and we follow them in one take. They just chit-chat as kids do, asking questions about where they’ve been or what their plans might be. Well, actually Jill does most of the talking, but this scene is basically Slacker. Brilliant. That’s the integrally familiar element of Linklater’s work for me, that it is those throw-away, unspoken moments of life that still warrant our attention. The mundane is actually the unique. I spend hours of my life pondering on such.
PROUD PARENTS
Following graduation, Mom and Dad find themselves alone in the kitchen (they rarely share such screen time in the near three hours of the film). The tone of the scene captures the realisation of the changes in their own separate lives in the years that have gone by. But more than that, the overwhelming pride they have of their grown up kids. As shooting neared a close, I wonder how much those feelings of the actors mirrored their characters. My parents were never in the same room after the divorce, a separation is exactly that. And as a child you look both ways, following the path in both directions. Wondering more and more as the significance of growing older lingers with you if they were proud of you, however you turn out.
GREAT ADVICE
Having once done some manual work for their house, the family meet Ernesto again, now a restaurant manager. He humbly tells Mom that he took her advice to go to college, and gratefully owes his current success to her. She is touched, and I suspect had some of her confidence restored that she has indeed done a lot of good. It is a lovely moment. I’ll await my dad’s reaction when he reads this, but he knows the high esteem and respect I have for him and the influence he has had on my own life. As for my mother, as turbulent as that relationship was for many years, where she still here, I still would like to tell her in person that some of the life lessons she hurled my way have done plenty of good.
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