Boyhood

A seemingly limitless stream of pure empathy runs through Richard Linklater's transcendental movie event/social experiment/life-affirming headtrip Boyhood. At the end of the film's first seamlessly interwoven vignette, 6-year-old Mason (Ellar Coltrane, literally growing up on camera) and his family are moving away from their sleepy Texas town. As the car drives off, Mason's playmate speeds up on his bike for one last glimpse, barely visible through the tall grasses of fading memory. This is the first of many forgettable friends who will flit in and out of Mason's young life. Late in the film, when Mason is a college-bound teenager, an adult offers that post-adolescence is “where you find your people,” and Mason can barely refrain from rolling his eyes. The miracle of Boyhood is that we empathize with everyone in this scenario, even with the nameless and forgotten playmate starring in his own alternate-universe movie life.