Whales and the Best Movie I've Seen in Awhile.

Last night Brian and I rented Boyhood to watch after going out to dinner. We wanted to see it since all the Oscar buzz surrounding it has our interest, and the concept seemed pretty original: the same cast, filmed over 12 years, following a boy and his family through hard, real, and mundane seasons of life. Mason, the protagonist, maintains a level head and a tender heart through the tumultuous childhood he's given. On a more aesthetic note, the soundtrack choices and small inclusions of pop-culture to help mark the time (Gameboy Advanced, 20 Questions, Pokemon, Britney Spears) were perfection.

Brian and I had the same favorite part. When visiting his dad on the weekend, right before they fall asleep, Mason asks him a question. It goes like this:

Mason: Dad, there's no real magic in the world, right?
Dad: What do you mean?
Mason: You know, like elves and stuff. People just made that up.
Dad: Oh, I don't know. I mean, what makes you think that elves are any more magical than something like a whale? You know what I mean? What if I told you a story about how underneath the ocean, there was this giant sea mammal that used sonar and sang songs and it was so big that its heart was the size of a car and you could crawl through the arteries? I mean, you'd think that was pretty magical, right? 

The best thing about the movie, I think, is how it elevates what we Americans might call a "regular" or "normal" childhood to expose it for what it is: incredibly rocky and tough to go through, something that should be celebrated when it's conquered. We've heard the story a million times: a kid's parents get divorced (or never get married), his mom struggles to raise him and his sister as she moves from one drunken jerk of a husband to another, and is constantly clawing her way through for herself and her family. She attends night class, gets a better job, and yet, still, even when the bills start to get paid on time, the brokenness follows. We watch Mason go from a six-year-old boy who gets in trouble for putting rocks in the pencil sharpener at school to a mature, introspective teenager who goes through love, heartbreak, and asking the big questions about what he is supposed to do in this life and why this whole rig is here in the first place. Through the lens of this film, this kind of childhood, although common, is no longer normal. Or just regular. It's real and hard. Kids go through it and kids survive it. I think Mason's survival is amazing. Boyhood champions a not uncommon (but not unimportant) story, bearing witness to its struggles, and pointing ahead to opportunities still to come.

I suppose you could call it a classic coming of age story, but I've never seen one quite like this before. I think it was well worth the 2 hours and 45 minutes; I almost wished it were longer! Movies like this remind me why I love to think about things like worldview, purpose, perspectives, and of course, magic.