Boyhood is a gimmick film in that it was shot over a 12 year period so that the characters would literally age over the course of their story. Normally I'm not a fan of gimmicks. But in the case of Boyhood, I thought it was a great way to go because you become invested in the characters. You want to see where they end up at and how much they change or how little they change. It's that mystery that kept me glued to the screen.  The movies has it's great moments, but it also has it's flaws. For starters, the movie is way too long for an 'Indie' flick. I can't recall any Indie flick clocking in at 2 1/2 hours. But, I understand why the length is what it is. You can't expect to track 12 years in a 90 minute film without cutting out huge chunks of film that would undermine the purpose of the story. With that said, because the movie was so long, it ran the risk of being stuck in quicksand at times, the later half of the movie suffering the most. Another flaw with the movie is that the dialogue was stiff and redundant at times. This is a trademark style of Richard Linklater and can be found in all of his films and because the movie was so long, it stood out more because of it.

The rest of the movie I actually enjoyed. I dug seeing the entire family getting older, especially the kids. Seeing Patricia Arquette at the start of the movie blew me away in how young she looked compared to today. Now as much as I love Patricia, and you all know that I do, I don't' get how she won for Best Supporting Actress. It's not that she was bad.....far from it. It's just that her character would disappear for huge chunks of time and when she was on screen, it wasn't any kind of knock-out performance. If anything, I would say that any one episode of Medium was worlds beyond what she does in the movie. On Medium she was giving everyone an acting class week in and week out. Anyway, I think Boyhood does warrant a Rent just to see the passage of time. It's cool to see the technology changing as well as what was happening in pop culture at the time.