Boyhood, directed by Richard Linklater
(R, 165 minutes)
Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is probably the best-reviewed film of 2014, and it made it onto many critics’ end-of-the-year Top 10 lists. It is a long and meandering epic that attempts and often achieves the impressionistic feel of remembered life. It was filmed over 12 years, allowing all the actors (especially those who began the project as adults) to age in real time. It tells an affecting story in a quietly empathetic way. It’s an honorable and obviously artistically successful project.
Boyhood doesn’t capture the emotional sense of what it feels like to be a child as well as Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life; it’s too explicit and literal. It’s more interesting to think about than actually watch.
Yet there are plenty of virtues. As it turns out, Ellar Coltrane, the young actor who grows from age 6 to 18 as the character Mason, is a natural, charismatic and engaging even in stillness. The episodes that unfold onscreen, charting the relationship of Mason’s estranged parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette), are understated, allowing each actor the opportunity to present subtle, unhurried work. As the adults drift and attach themselves, the kids — Mason and his older sister Samantha (the director’s daughter Lorelei Linklater) — are tugged along in their wake.
It’s not exactly a complaint to say that Boyhood is practically plotless — it’s about process rather than attainment — but it doesn’t quite earn its Transformers-like length. Mason hits all the signifying adolescent moments, but as the movie ends he’s still callow and unformed. He seems like a nice kid and all, but he’s hardly the most interesting character in his own movie.
That honor would have to go to his father, Mason Sr., who does the real growing up. Hawke has never been better than he is here. But Linklater has.
The Blu-ray combo pack includes the film in high definition, a Q & A with the director and the cast, a featurette on the 12-year project, and a digital copy of the film.
Horns (R, 123 minutes) A ragged mishmash of fantasy thriller, mystery, comedy and horror with some romance tossed in, Horns concerns Ig Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe), who’s a prime suspect in the rape and murder of his girlfriend Merrin (Juno Temple). Coming to his defense, and paving the way to discovering the truth about Merrin’s fate, is the growth of horns on his head that possess the power to make others spill out the truth about their sins. With Max Minghella, James Remar; directed by Alexandre Aja.
Get On Up (PG-13, 138 minutes) Chadwick Boseman is mesmerizing in the role of James Brown in this otherwise unspectacular bio-pic about the Godfather of Soul, who moved beyond childhood poverty and hopelessness to become a self-assured, respected, volatile and world-renowned entertainer. With Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Nelsan Ellis; directed by Tate Taylor.
No Good Deed (PG-13, 84 minutes) A thriller in which Terri (Taraji P. Henson), a former lawyer and devoted wife and mother of two, offers to help charming stranger Colin (Idris Elba) after he shows up at her door claiming car trouble. Terri soon realizes her mistake when Colin’s real motive is revealed and she finds herself fighting for her family’s survival. With Leslie Bibb; directed by Sam Miller. Blu-ray & DVD bonus features include a making-of featurette and details on the physicality of fight sequences.
Left Behind (PG-13, 110 minutes) This ridiculous, overwrought and clumsy remake of the 2002 original concerns sophisticated no-nonsense pilot Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage), his daughter Chloe (Cassi Thomson), and flashy young journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), who, on a seemingly ordinary day, are among those still on earth after millions of people vanish, creating chaos, car crashes, and fear. Then it dawns on them: This is the Rapture. And the anti-Christ is on the way. With Lea Thompson; directed by Vic Armstrong and based on the 1995 novel by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.