I really wanted to like Boyhood. I love those raw and honest Catcher in the Rye type coming-of age-stories. I was thrilled when I saw the trailer with its rugged realism, underscored by so many of those indie songs I came of age to. I was certain it would tug at my heart and change it.
But all I felt when I left the film was depressed and empty.
Boyhood started out on a promising note: an introverted, tender-hearted little boy with a wild side thrown into a mess of parental chaos, financial problems, and even domestic abuse. The boy naturally gets lost amidst it all and he is forced to find his own way. And we root for him.
But somewhere along the way it begins to feel like he isn’t going anywhere— nowhere good and nowhere bad. He doesn’t really rebel. He doesn’t really excel. He’s just kind of stagnant. He just let’s the world around him happen.
And nobody in the film seems to care to do anything about that. Everybody else is equally stagnant. I found it ironic that while we see actual physical development, as the actors and actresses literally age before our eyes, no one— spare, perhaps, the father— improves or worsens. There’s no depiction of self-discovery.
The boy’s few questioning moments are brief and almost always cut off by the other characters. Clichéd advice is thrown around along with empty praise and congratulations for Mason’s “accomplishments” and for the person he supposedly becomes. I couldn’t help but wonder— who is that person? Does anyone who saw Boyhood really know?
There are plenty of scenarios where we might expect to get some sort of answer — where some sort of self-discovery or transformation might emerge– but we get nothing. In a final monologue the mother begins to cry when Mason leaves for college. He asks her what’s wrong and she says it’s “the worst day of her life.” I was hoping a real conversation would take place here. I was hoping we’d actually see some love. But nothing happens. Literally. Mason doesn’t comfort her or say anything. We just move to the next scene of him driving away. There is no follow up, no questions are answered, and there is no character or relationship development.
In another final scene, Mason expresses an interest in the meaning of life. He asks his father, “So what’s the point?” His father replies, “Of what?” Mason then says, “I don’t know, any of this. Everything.” The father explains,
“Everything? What’s the point? I mean, I sure as shit don’t know. Neither does anybody else, okay? We’re all just winging it, you know? The good news is you’re feeling stuff. And you’ve got to hold on to that.”
Feeling stuff? I think we can all agree that’s not enough.
Now, some people say that this existential meaningless, this millennial angst, these empty morals— that all of this can be beautiful in the sense that it is a tragedy. They say the movie is beautiful because it teaches us about a reality we now face. It teaches us about how these realities come about.
And I agree that the world of Boyhood is a reality. And it is by all means a reality we need to understand. I also agree that depictions of sin are no reason alone to avoid a work of art. Every movie depicts sin. I actually think that Boyhood does a fairly good job of depicting sin and temptation without become pornographic or unnecessarily explicit.
But just because something is realistic does not mean it is good. A good movie needs to be more than realistic. Plenty of TV shows nowadays are realistic but many of us would call them trash.
I don’t think Boyhood is trash. But I think it has a very specific message and agenda. Many have claimed its message and agenda are a warning against Mason’s childhood. I would like to think this is the case. But everything I felt while watching and all the secular reviews I have read, such as this review, for example, indicate to me that it was the very opposite — the movie was not intended to be a warning, but rather a celebration. The film even contains a happy ending: the music, the scenery, the smiles left me with the message, “you’re okay, I’m okay.”
Boyhood is like one giant Buzzfeed, “you know you were a kid from the 2000’s if…” It’s full of nostalgia and “I remember that song or those shoes or that game” moments. Boyhood is brilliant at making us relate and remember. But it stops there.
And that’s the problem. Good art, good literature, good movies—they make us relate and then they do something. The character develops, evolves, for good or for ill. And we are forced to do so too. In Boyhood we aren’t prompted to do anything. All we are asked to do is passively watch and float along, unchanged— just like the characters.
The film lends itself, I think, to be received in a number of ways. I do, however, believe you’ve sort of missed the point of much of it.
Mason is dynamic. He is growing emotionally and with this, he is awash with confusion. We see this in his familial relations, in the beatiful dialogue he shares with his sister, his mother, even in his dissatisfaction with his school work. His mother, too, is rich in dynamicism. we watch her wrestle with what seems to be her desire to give her family a father figure, while still trying to figure out life on her own. Her character marries a life of accomplishment (as she seems to come of age herself, only to find success) as well as the very same confusion and existential hopelessness that permeates her son. The scene in which you say nothing happens, as mason’s mother says it is the saddest day of her life, is a scene of tremendous meaning and realization—a scene of worlds diverging. Mason, whom is still so very confused and questions the meaning of all around him, is about to embark on adulthood, where (it is thought by many children) life might actually begin to show its purpose. Mason undoubtedly seems to doubt this. His mother, however, is on the opposite plane of this cycle. She’s succeeded in what she believed her purpose to be, providing a good life for her children. She now has time to reflect. What she see’s is that her life can be characterized by a series of events. One after another, these events occur, but ultimately, she feels that there is no underlying meaning to this. Where does this all go? Why does any of this matter? What, if anything, matters beyond the sole purpose she gave her life? She is in existential crisis. She is looking for meaning where once she found it in her children. This scene is beautiful. This scene honestly portrays life’s fleeting meaning, and the crisis of the individual in terms of the all. Each character has surely grown since the beginning in order to enter this scene.
Furthermore, I feel there is no lesson to this story other than, possibly, what the father has to offer mason, which is that we are all feeling something and should hold onto it. The drugs, the sex—these loaded terms you wanted to find a lesson in, are ultimately (in my opinion) props of the story for the purpose of showing growth in a less personal sense. They are no more significant than Mason’s physical growth. But that’s okay. Movies don’t have to have lessons about those subjects, we all receive information on them. What we do not all recieve information on is life’s oscillating meaning and force as perceived by the self. But Mason’s father assures us that as long as we’re feeling the oscillation, as long as we’re living in the narrative we’re constructing, there’s reason to live. We get to decide that meaning, ultimately; we’re growing. Nothing lasts forever. Truly nothing is static. The characters display this. You may claim to feel they are static, but (and I’m sorry for the assumption) it would seem you were looking for something in this movie, rather than experiencing it as life. You may have hoped for someone to explain to Mason that everything means X, Y, and Z, and that Mason would smile and change his life and it’s all over. Life doesn’t tend to happen like that, and when it does, it should be concerning. Mason’s changes are subtle, but they add up to huge shifts in his perception and values.
What I find most odd about this article is that you say you wanted to see a story like Holden Caulfield’s. This story is just that. Remember, my dear writer, that Holden’s changes were lost on many, too, despite the major shifts that can be detected in Catcher in the Rye. If you saw Holden’s story as one of personal growth, it should seem likely you’d recognize Mason’s. I’m sorry to see you did not. I’d suggest watching again. Your appreciation of Catcher in the Rye leads me to believe you really can come to appreciate this film if you dislodge yourself from the error of expecting a movie to find meaning in a lesson that could be summed up in a slogan like “don’t do drugs” or “Jesus saves”. These messages may be good, but Boyhood’s message is honest contemplation that must be experienced rather than told, thus the movie’s resistance to trite melodrama, which I feel would prevent the audience from experiencing the story as a truth no different than our own.