Boyhood - why did i wait so long?

I thought this would be a sentimental film - manipulative even. I hate being manipulated by anyone, let alone a movie!  Man was I wrong.

Directed by Richard Linklater - who directed one of my all time favourite movies "School of Rock", as well as Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, A Scanner Darkly among others - this film is a culmination of 13 years of vision.

 Filmed over this period with the same cast, we see the children Mason and Samantha grow up before our very eyes. We see their parents played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke grow older before our eyes. We see a broken family break some more, and we see the resilience of the human spirit. We feel the despair and the hope, the future and the past that can never be recovered.

 This movie was very hard to watch - I don't know if it because of how i was feeling that day... but so many of the scenes and conversations in the film reminded me of what growing up is like. And at the same time, what being a parent is like, what being part of a family means - however disfunctional. 

The dialog seemed unscripted to me - ad libbed. I felt so often throughout this movie that I was eavesdropping on private moments, that i was looking at this family from the outside. Maybe it was, I haven't checked.

It's so beautifully filmed, so heartfelt, so heartbreakingly sad and yet joyful at the same time.

 Patricia Arquette - in her final scene talks about life being a series of milestones. She says "i thought there would be more" - to life that is - than just a series of events that define your life. I cried for hours that day, i too thought there would be more to my life.

 I love the movies, and i go to the movies - not simply to be entertained, but because i love language and i love watching the pictures in someone else's mind come to life.

 There are films - like The Tree of Life, and this one - that speak to me about what life feels like, its texture. I absolutely loved this movie. I cried and laughed throughout it. It made me remember, and made me feel... that ultimately perhaps there is no more to life than the events that define us.

 5/5