I watched the movie Boyhood a few years ago, and it did to me what few other movies do—it made me immediately go write about it after I finished. Here's a few scattered thoughts I wrote down. Before you read them, let me just say that I recommend the film as a film, not as a pick-me-up or good laugh. It's very much a story about reality. Also, if you haven't watched it, this analysis probably won't make sense. Stop reading, go watch the film, then come back if you'd like to see how your thoughts match mine.
Central Question: Purpose of Life. The film continually shows a search for reason. The reason the mother's worst day is when her son leaves for college is that her kids had been her purpose. If they're gone, what is her purpose now?
Sam's toast almost embodied his future, in that she's the half who has experienced what he's heading into. She says nothing in her toast of his past or theirs together, and all she can master for the future is a "good luck," as if she knows there's nothing new or different there.
Familial Progression: The discomfort attended with the initial disagreements between the mom and dad changes as first the mom gets a new husband, who is bad, then another, who she also loses, then the dad gets a new wife. The progression seems natural—isn't expansion and wanting someone new and better natural—but is also subliminally unnatural, for after more abuse, drunkenness, and step siblings, the resulting size and shape of the family is not what they were seeking.
Slow progression of innocence lost: When the boy is little and looking through a lingerie magazine, I initially responded a little bummed that they'd put that in there. Then he's thirteen and camping out, and though he stands up for nothing, it's ambiguous just how much innocence he's lost. He begins drinking and kissing, and by the end of the movie he's done the latter to excess, and smoked, and done drugs. But it happened slowly. What does this say in relation to the movie's title? Is this boyhood, or the loss of it? Is this proscriptive, or descriptive? The movie also shows the parents' reactions to this when he's come from making out in the back of a car and sneaks inside during a dinner party. He admits to his mom that he drank and smoked a little bit. Her slight shock and perhaps chagrin is almost blatantly interrupted by a proclamation that it's just become his fifteenth birthday. The juxtaposition is stunning.
Mason: Well, what about Mason, our main character? Does the film exhibit a search for purpose, or does it seek to answer that with his "seize the moment" adage? This saying is aptly reflected by his photography habits. Is seizing the moment the answer to the purpose question? Isn't this what the film sought to do—seize each moment of Boyhood?
Brokenness: The film is so full of it. The film isn't condoning it. It's not saying that it's how people should act, but it's saying that his is how people do act. Does it leave it at that? Well, on the other hand, it doesn't seem to condemn it either. So is the movie a search for purpose in a world that's messed up?
As I type this up and read back over it, I realize that this was one of the first times that I saw brokenness so fully portrayed. I didn't experience much of this firsthand growing up, and I think this movie actually was one of my first exposures to many of these themes. I remember pervasive sadness filling me when I saw him making out with the girl in the back of the car—seeing the grunge and the seeking and the darkness. It's interesting for me to think about, and I see it reflected in my final, inconclusive thoughts at the end of my rambling review:
"The film doesn't carry redemptive themes, and I certainly wouldn't say it honors Jesus, so what is its good? I guess I think it was a really good search film."
I like this because it hits on something I've been thinking about a lot recently—standards for interaction with media in light of the lines between art and porn . . . I talked about that a little bit earlier (Messay: Life These Days), and it's something I think I'll always be interested in. I like that, then, because reading over this reminds me of places I have been in relation to this issue in the past.
