401 - Boyhood, United States, 2014. Dir. Richard Linklater.

Monday, February 5, 2018

401 - Boyhood, United States, 2014.  Dir. Richard Linklater.

Blessed are those who can believe without seeing.

So says the Pastor of the nameless country church somewhere outside of Houston.  Richard Linklater has him add the word can.  As if to say some people cannot.  An honest expression of self-doubt.  Perhaps even an admiration of those who do.  But Jesus in John 20:29 states it without the word can.  Suggesting it is an act of the will.  That anyone can.  Even Mason.  Even you.

Mason sits in the church looking uncomfortable.  Not only from being in church but also for wearing the suit he has on.  And holding a Bible his new step-grandparents have given him for his birthday.

What is he doing here?

He does not fit in.

And to be brought here by his father, of all people.  The man who once disappeared to Alaska.  Who gave him a mixtape CD of Beatles solo songs.  Who promised him the GTO when he turned 16.  Who has entered his life off and on throughout his life with presents and good times and a philosophy born of experience and music lyrics.

Richard Linklater loves his Texas weirdos.

So the Pastor with the gut protruding through his too-tight cheap dress shirt fits in his world just as naturally as the UT Professor with Tenure sitting in the booth at 3:00 am pontificating about celestial star maps charting the procession of the pole star 14,000 years into the future.

The misfits who fit in.

And as Mason navigates his way through this messy, complicated life, you cannot help but believe that through it all he is somehow going to be OK.

Mason's parents came together young.  His father, Mason Sr., explains this to him and his sister Samantha one day when they are on one of their lifelong bowling outings.  He is giving Samantha a talk about contraception, overlooking the fact that he is embarrassing her, because he wants her life to turn out better than his.

"I was 23 when your mom had you, all right?  So was she.  All right, and we didn't put ourselves in the best position to be great parents.  And I wish that . . . and I wish that I were a better parent to you guys, all right?  And I hope that you can learn from my mistakes, okay?  All right.  So wear a condom, okay?"

Somehow he never comes across as implying that they were a mistake or a burden or a regret.  On the contrary, it is at this moment that you realize how deeply he loves his children.  And how deeply he has loved them over the years, despite starting off as an absent father.  Despite leaving their mother to do all the heavy lifting of raising them.  Despite exposing them prematurely to things that might not be in their best interest.

And perhaps trying a little too hard to make his son the man that he himself was not.

When he was 6, Mason asked his dad if he could use the bumpers when they went bowling.  Samantha could bowl strikes, but Mason got gutter balls.

Mason Sr. refused.  Attempting to teach his son a lesson.  "Bumpers are for kids!  What are you, two years old?"

"Life doesn't give you bumpers."

"You bowl a strike with bumpers and it doesn't mean anything."

But now he apologizes.  "I'm sorry about that bumper business.  I'm gonna get better at stuff like that, okay?"

He too is growing up.  He too is leaving boyhood.  So it is appropriate that they are both named Mason.  This movie is about both of them.

This movie is about all of them.

Their mother Olivia has worked hard to raise them.  She has gone from house to house, town to town, and man to man to try to survive.  It is hard to appreciate the struggle when you are a child and in need of stability.  Mason and Samantha feel like pinballs in the pinball machine of the adult world.

Linklater continues his running theme of how young people feel oppressed by adult rules.  They have creativity and ideas and longings, but they have no freedom.  And what do you do when the adults are less responsible than you are, but you still have to mind them?

For example, the next two men in Olivia's life, her teacher Bill Wellbrook and later her student, the Iraqi veteran with PTSD, Jim.

Bill Wellbrook, is an overbearing rulemaker.  He also has a son and daughter, Randy and Mindy, and he makes the blended family do chores like there is no tomorrow.  He belittles the boys for not finishing their leaf raking and the girls for not finishing their dusting before Samantha and Mason go off with their biological father.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Dusting!

Yet he takes them all with him when he stops by the liquor store to sneak home a few bottles.  "Just in case we have guests this weekend."  Mindy knows better.  "He always says that, but we never have guests."

When he starts drinking out in the open and taunting Mason at dinner, climaxing with his throwing and breaking of glassware, Olivia knows she needs to leave him.  She takes the kids without stopping to let them pack, and they abandon everything they own, all their possessions, including their step siblings, including all their friends, to move to a new town with only the clothes on their backs.

Later, when she herself becomes a teacher and begins dating her student Jim, things do not get better.  Jim the veteran now works for the Department of Corrections.  He ought to be an upstanding citizen.  But he too drinks.  And he is struggling with his war memories.  He too is overbearing and gives Mason a hard time.

When Mason complains about it and protests, "You know Jim, you're not my Dad," Jim responds by stinging him.

"No, I'm not your dad.  You know how I know that?  'Cause I'm actually here.  I'm the guy with the job, paying the bills, taking care of you, your mom, your sister.  Huh?  Huh?  I'm that guy!"

Her fourth man will be Ted, a wearer of pink polo shirts.  We know little about him other than that he shows up at Mason's graduation party.

Olivia finally breaks down when the kids head off to college.  As she prepares to sell yet another house and her daughter asks her why--because the kids long to have a home to come home to--she says because it is too expensive.  So Samantha asks her why she bought it in the first place.

"Because I really enjoy making poor life decisions, keeping us on the brink of poverty."

Patricia Arquette's acting is extraordinary.  You cannot help but feel compassion for these folks.

"I've spent the first half of my life acquiring all this crap, and now I'm gonna spend the second half getting rid of all this stuff."

"I got rid of a couple husbands.  Now I'm gonna get rid of a mortgage, some maintenance, the tchotchskes, the homeowner's insurance, the property tax, the plumbing."

Mason will discover photography, and it is through his art that he feels as though he has a place in the world and a way to contribute.

As he begins college he still does not understand a lot of things and neither does his father, yet they are working through it all together.

Back when Samantha got angry over the new step-father, she complained to her mother about it.

"Why did you even marry him?  He's such a jerk!"

And Olivia responded, "Well, Bill has his good qualities.  You know, nobody's perfect.  And now we have a family."

Samantha asserted in return, "We already had a family."

And as the years go by you realize that Samantha was right.  They already had a family.  The men come and go.  The step-siblings come and go.  Mason Sr. starts his own new life.

But they will always have each other.

They will always be a family.


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In 2001 I was sitting in a movie theater watching Training Day.  At some point in the movie Denzel Washington's character Alonzo drops off Ethan Hawke's character Jake at the home of Smiley (Cliff Curtis).  He leaves Jake stuck there at the poker game.  Jake is now in a situation that is beyond uncomfortable.  And might be lethal.  And as I watched Ethan Hawke's performance, something resonated on the inside of me that continues to resonate.  Here was a major actor.  A monster talent.  I had to see everything he was in.  Of course I already felt that way about Denzel,

It turned out I had already seen Ethan Hawke a lot.  In Dead Poets Society (1989), Waterland (1992), Alive (1993), Quiz Show (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), and Snow Falling on Cedars (1999).  (Even still you can see I had missed him in plenty of others.)  But it was at that moment that he leapt into my consciousness and I became a fan for life.  His work here as Mason Sr. is strong.  His work with Richard Linklater as a whole is special.  We will watch the Before movies sometime later.

I have always loved the Arquette family and I have always admired Patricia.  I appreciate that Quentin Tarantino gave her the name Alabama in True Romance (1993).  She won the Oscar for her performance here.  The movie could have won for Best Picture but lost to Birdman.  It was a strong year.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ellar Coltrane at a film festival where he was screening his movie By the River (2016).  I think it is extraordinary that he got to work on a character through those pivotal years of his life.  It is something that few people will ever experience, and it is something to appreciate.

Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei Linklater plays Samantha, and she is terrific.

Linklater's movies are grounded in reality and feel true to life.  That is why they are so enjoyable.  And will stand the test of time.