I Watched It So You Don't Have To: Boyhood

The premise behind filming the movie is interesting enough: Film a movie over ten years using the same actors and hope no one dies before shooting is complete. Fustratingly, this is the only interesting thing about the movie. Clocking in at an completely unnecessary two hours and forty-five minutes, Boyhood is an achingly slow, utterly boring peek into the lives of one of the most uninteresting families in cinematic history. As the film has no plot, you begin wondering why this wasn't shot as a documentary on someone growing up over the course of twelve years. Such a documentary would have been far more interesting, that is, until you recall how much more interesting your own mundane childhood was compared to what ‘happens’ in this movie. This movie has nothing going for; least of all the characters. The film's protagonist - played by Ellar Coltrane - is a mumbling stick in the mud who is such a non-entity that bullies don't even bother to take the time to beat him up. Ethan Hawke, though at his squirrely best, can't save this experiment because he’s simply given nothing to work with. Rather, it's up to Patricia Arquette to hold your interest as you wait for the next year in the movie to pass just to see how much more weight she can pack on. The movie mercifully ends as our protagonist finally figures out what two-year olds have been trying to tell us for ever; it's always right now. THAT’S the movie’s idea of a pay-off. Or is it ’rip-off’? If this is all our director Linklater has left in the tank, his license to film should be revoked before he kills again. The accolades this movie has received from critics is exactly why no one listens to critics anymore.