Richard Linklater's BOYHOOD--twelve years in the making--is something to see, feel and cherish

When I was a kid, I seem to recall certain movies being advertised with the tag line, Five years in the making! Something like that. The effect this was supposed to have on those of us who might purchase a ticket was to prepare us for a movie "event." Said film might have also had, in the parlance of the day, "a cast of thousands" or "spectacle like nothing you've ever seen." All of which is told you now in preparation for Richard Linklater's new movie, BOYHOOD, which was twelve years in the making, has nothing approaching a cast of thousands, and the only spectacle you'll see -- it's the one that counts, however -- is that of humanity unveiled in ways you won't quite have experienced till now. But, hey, moviegoers -- this is the real event.

On the basis of Bernie, his "Before" trilogy and now Boyhood, it seems clear to me that Mr. Linklater, shown at  left, is among and perhaps at the top of the small heap of great American filmmakers currently working. What he has done in his latest is to film the same group of actors, who make up a supposed "family," over the period of a dozen years, in which the young son of the group ages from something like six years old to 18. (Maybe it's 7 to 19, but you get the point.) We watch and marvel as this adorable kid named Mason (Ellar Coltrane, on poster, top) grows and ages, his features -- as well as his thought processes -- deepen and mature with experience until he becomes the young man, below, who is about to spread his wings and try. We've seen kids age in plenty of movies previously. But never like this. It's the same kid, at every age and in every moment, and the verisimilitude pulls you into his character in ways not experienced in film until now.

The same thing works with on us via Mason's parents -- played by Patricia Arquette (below) and Ethan Hawke (further below, center). They may already be adults when the film begins, yet they, too, change and grow remarkably and believably during the course of things. Mason's older sister, Samantha (played by Lorelei Linklater, the director's daughter, shown two photos down, at left, and at bottom, center), occupies a place somewhere between Mason and his parents. She's older and a bit more "formed" when we first meet her, yet still a kid, so her growth is perceived slightly differently throughout. This evolving family unit is a first for cinema, and though it may remind you of Michael Apted's "Up" series, because it's a narrative contained within a two-hour-and-46-minute running time, it works on us in quite a different way. (Don't be frightened by the film's length: There's not a boring scene to be found.)

The experience of watching these actors play the same character from year to year to year is a rich one, and the screenplay, also by Linklater, using some help from his very able actors, is equally rich, allowing us to observe the ways in which these people change -- and the ways in which they don't or can't. (Mom has the bad habit of choosing guys who initially appear "nice" but whose combination of drink and abuse is unhealthy. For all his problems, and despite the dissolution of the marriage, Hawke's dad turns out to have been her wisest choice.)

This unusual idea of returning through the years to the same characters and their story is indeed a good one and makes the film special. But were it not for Linklater's skills as writer and director, this might have come off as mainly a clever stunt. It never is. Scene after scene bursts with life that turns into art, enabling us to empathize with all the characters in this often extended family. Take the one that occurs over a meal with mom and kids and their step-dad and his kids. Fraught with anger and a rising sense of foreboding, this is as fine a scene of its kind as I've ever experienced.

The movie beautifully captures the sense of parents constantly trying to serve and protect their children, while struggling to do what's good and necessary for themselves, as well. If only they knew a little better what that might be! From a technical aspect, because the movie was filmed as it went along, there is never a question of continuity problems nor of getting the "look" correct. Clothes, cars, news and events -- it is all as it was.

Selection -- what, finally, to show us out of this vast life of Mason -- is vital, too, and I think Linklater has chosen exceedingly well which moments were the important ones to capture. We experience all kinds of moods and we're there for the events, large and small, along the way -- some quite verbal, others quiet and visually on the mark. Together they bring us a picture of a boy growing into young manhood unlike anything we've yet seen.

Boyhood, from IFC Films, opens this Friday,. July 11, in New York City (IFC Center, Lincoln Plaza Cinema), Brooklyn (BAM Rose Cinema) and Los Angeles (Arclight, Hollywood, and The Landmark). In the weeks to come it'll be expanding to theaters throughout the entire country. Click here to see currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters

Note: Director Linklater & star Coltrane, will both appear 

in person at the IFC Center on Saturday, July 12, for Q&As 

following the 12:45, 1:45, 7:25 & 8:25 shows, 

with intros only at the 4:05 & 10:40 shows.  

(Earlier shows and appearances are evidently already sold out!)

Stars Arquette and Hawke will appear for a Q&A at the Hollywood Arclight 

on Saturday, July 12 at the 7:15 and 8:15 shows.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT: 3rd time (still) lucky for the Linklater/Delpy/Hawke franchise

As great movie trilogies go, forget Lord of the Rings and the recent Batman crap. Leave it to Linklater (Richard, that is) to come up with the real keeper. Who'd have thought, back in 1995, when he had two strangers meet on a train and mostly just talk (but what talk!) in Before Sunrise, that he would follow it up with more of the talky twosome nine years later with Before Sunset, then do it again with this latest and best of the three: BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

I say "best," but maybe not. Without the first two films, there would no third. Would there? The idea is interesting: Could this movie stand on its own? (I suspect so.) How would it play for people who have not seen the other two? Not badly, I warrant. Most of the folk who flock to Linklater's latest (the filmmaker is shown at right) will already be fans, and I don't think they'll be disappointed. For this film is -- by virtue of its continuing a great love story and enriching it over time as its characters grow and change -- the standard-bearer of relationship movies: remarkably real, moving and funny, while giving both parties their power and say, without ever for a moment descending to anything as paltry and tiresome as "fair and balanced."

The two characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke, above and below, right) and Celine (Julie Delpy, above and below, left), after meeting and growing close in the first film, meet again nearly a decade later in the second, once they've gone their separate ways and hooked up with others.

Now after almost twenty years, they're together with a family of their own, though Hawke's son from his earlier marriage (in the great "airport" scene that begins the movie), after a vacation with his dad, is headed back to Chicago.

The two and their two adorable little girls are vacationing on one of the Greece isles, so the scenery is jaw-dropping gorgeous. But it's the conversation that will really get you. Over an al fresco dinner, they and their friends and hosts talk about so many things, and the dialog -- involcing creativity, love, sex and marriage -- simply sparkles, without every becoming precious or unreal. God, this is wonderful stuff!

All the performances are all spot-on, with a special shout-out to a fabulous cinematographer, Walter Lassally (at left, back to camera), who here proves also to be a good actor.

Finally, though, it's the relationship between Jesse and Celine -- still fraught, tender, loving, angry and so much more -- that commands the movie, leading us and these two into a greater state of maturity that encompasses more, while allowing us to understand it, than we've seen before.

Delpy and Hawke collaborated with Linklater on the screenplay, as in the past films, and it's clear that all three continue to grow and mature. In the process of this day and night, scabs are ripped from a few not-quite-healed wounds, some continuing problems resurface, but so do the memories, good humor and self-deflating irony that help healthy relationships survive.

The filmmaker keeps his camera close when necessary, distanced when appropriate and always watchful so that we see what we need to -- via the spot-on performances -- and so can fill in certain blanks better even that the expert dialog.

You might think of this as the narrative companion to something like Michael Apted's 7-Up series, though it doesn't really compare to much else that cinema has given us. It's a rich, blessed experience and the kind of honest love story (as much for its uncertainty as for anything else) that comes along once in a lifetime for both the participants and us viewers. I won't be alive for the next nine-year installment. I'm missing it already.

Before Midnight, from Sony Pictures Classics and running 108 minutes, opens this Friday in New York City (at the Angelika Film Center and the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13), Los Angeles (at The Landmark and the Arclight Hollywood) and Austin (in Linklater's hometown at the Violet Crown Cinema). In the weeks immediately following, the movie will open all over the USA.
Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Richard Linklater's BERNIE hits a high mark for the year. Hell, even Texas looks good!

How good is BERNIE, the new film from a fellow who is certainly up there with the best of our American movie-makers: Richard Linklater? Let's put it another way. How good is Jack Black at his best? Or: Can you imagine Mathew McConaughey giving a scaled-down, crisp, smart and somehow non-showy performance? Further: Could any living filmmaker (this one is shown below) make Shirley MacLaine fit seamlessly into all of this? And finally, knowing TrustMovies' penchant for Texas-hating (well, he learned it from dem damn movies: Incendiary, Into the Abyss, Texas Killing Fields and on and on!), how could a film that features this state and its denizens seem to be taking place in a little slice of heaven? (Granted, it's set in East Texas. But still...) Bernie manages all of this and more. Yes, it's that good.

Where to start? With Mr. Black, below, who tops anything he's done so far, and that is saying plenty. He takes an unusual character and makes him live and breathe and, while seeming immediate and very real, also seems always to be just slightly mysterious. Maybe too good to be true. But then, maybe not. It's hard to pin down the magic this actor achieves. If a nomination is not already in the works, for god sake, get a campaign going. Black makes Bernie (the man and the movie) funny, of course, but also honest and kind and odd and happy (and gay) and just a tad frightening. As I say (and Doris Day once sang), it's magic. And when at last we see the real Bernie, briefly at movie's end, the performance seems even more truthful and special.

Much credit -- reams, tons -- must go to Mr. Linklater, who does something so effortlessly sophisticated and charming that he has reeled you in before you quite know you're hooked. He uses narration about as well (and as much) as I've seen done in any movie and couples it so cleverly into his living narrative, moving back and forth with such ease and delight, that we can only follow along. Title cards, witty and loving, appear with some regularity, too. "Loving" actually hits it dead-on, I think. This is perhaps as loving a film -- about a place and the people in it -- as I can recall. And yet it never gushes or moons. It keeps its irony going strong but, still, love conquers all.

You'll notice that I am going nowhere near the plot. Nor will I. You need to approach this film knowing as little about it as possible, then letting Linklater's wonderful scenario creep up and wash over you. What happens (and how) is such surprising, frisky fun that to know too much is to experience a spoiler a minute. (Those of you who've read the article that appeared in the The New York Times Magazine two weeks ago, be warned: The friend who attended the screening with me and had read it said that it did indeed dampen his enthusiasm somewhat by giving away too much. So read the article, sure, but after you see the film.)

Back to Black. The actor sings, he dances, he romances (courtly and non-sexual, of course), and he does all this so well. Not like the wailing award-winners on those sappy TV programs, but simply and professionally. Watching the scene from Bernie's production of The Music Man is like watching a really good production of a high school musical. You understand how important Bernie is to these kids -- and to the whole town. Ditto his work with Little Leaguers (above).

I don't know that anyone intentionally meant it this way, but Black's performance and Linklater's fine work stand as a paean to the closeted, southern gay man and what he's had to do to win the community's heart and mind (Bernie does). We see how he does it all, but not so much the why. We get little of Bernie's background, so character, not to mention the whole truth, remains mysterious. Which, I think, is the way it should be. Actions, after all, count for nearly everything. In the end, this stands as one of the important morals of the movie.

Though every last tiny role is brought to life beautifully, there are really only three of note in the movie: Black's, MacLaine's and McConaughey's. If it's Black's movie, the support he gets from the other two help make it so. MacLaine, at left, is on-screen very little, but not a moment with her is wasted. For awhile it seems that Bernie has gotten through to her character, but no: She soon goes back to her former self. In life, most of us do not change. We can maybe lessen our worse qualities and try a little harder. But few of us become drastically different.

McConaughey, above, is usually a showy actor (The Lincoln Lawyer), and he's good at it and lots of fun, too. Here, he's much less sexy than usual. Looking studious and serious behind glasses, he does not even appear to be Matthew McConaughey, initially. But self-love, kept cleverly and ironically at a discrete distance, permeates his character, and the actor does a bang-up job of giving his law officer everything he needs to succeed.

Other than these three pros, the movie's ace-in-the-hole are its townspeople whom Linklater brings to life with exactly the right amount of time and a wonderfully light touch. I tried to watch carefully as the end credits rolled to see if they were credited as being the actual townspeople, but I saw no mention of this. David Denby, in his review in The New Yorker, says they were. All the more reason then, to treasure this film -- which blends truth and its fictional cousin to a fare-thee-well, as near perfectly as any movie-maker has so far managed.

Bernie may remind you of of the work of Errol Morris, particularly his recent Tabloid, though Mr. Morris enjoys making fun of his subjects more, I think, than does Mr. Linklater, who tends to identify with them. If the noted documentarian were to make another narrative film (his Dark Wind didn't work too well), it might look something like this one -- 104 minutes, from Millennium Entertainment -- which opens Friday, April 27, at, I hope, a theater near you. In New York, it's opening exclusively at the Angelika Film Center. Elsewhere? I don't know. Maybe the movie's web site will eventually post playdates, cities and theaters. (That would be helpful, Millennium....)