Boyhood (2014)
- Richard Linklater originally wanted a completely different ending for the film, but test audiences preferred the one we see today.
- Before Ellar Coltrane was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- During the filming of Boyhood, Ellar Coltrane improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
Boyhood is a 2014 American coming-of-age drama directed by Richard Linklater, one of the most ambitious projects in cinema history. The film was shot intermittently over 12 years, from 2002 to 2013, following the same actor โ Ellar Coltrane โ from age 6 to 18, with Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke as his divorced parents, also aging naturally on screen. Rather than depicting dramatic events, Boyhood captures the ordinary texture of growing up: homework, video games, camping trips, moving to new schools, parents' new relationships, first beers, college applications.
The result was not a conventional narrative but a mosaic of moments that accumulated into a profoundly moving portrait of time passing. Patricia Arquette won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a mother whose sacrifices and struggles span the full twelve years. Richard Linklater was nominated for Best Director.
Boyhood earned $57 million worldwide on a $4 million budget and received near-universal critical acclaim as a genuinely unprecedented artistic achievement.
