Anticipating Linklater's "Boyhood"

couldn't figure out why i felt differently from everyone else re: arquette/restaurant scene till clemenza nailed it just now, kudos

Thanks, schlump and gr8080.

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says, and she has it again (though a little more ambiguous--there's a trace of "You're telling me this now?") when Hawke thanks her at Mason's graduation party; she really is overlooked by almost everyone in her life.

Something else debated earlier: whether or not the drunken father's eventual behavior is telegraphed immediately. Again, I don't think there's any indication in his first scene at the university: the worst you can say is that he's bland and kind of full of himself. It's the next scene, where he seems a little too sharp at the restaurant about his son's unfinished homework, that a red flag is thrown up. (But it's not a straight line from there--in the charades scene, he's a good guy again.)

she really is overlooked by almost everyone in her life

this point was not lost on me btw
i didn't type it out bc it was too depressing (and i thought clear?!) but yeah

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says

I like your read of the scene and all, but I did not get that from Arquette at all.

To me it felt like a mix of gratitude and surprise/shock. The one thing I'll say is that I think it's a film that deserves a second look; felt I got much more out of it the second time. (The three hours went by unusually quickly, too.)

Arquette had such a look of gratitude when the restaurant guy says what he says

I'm with Eric, it was more like "Who IS this guy?"

Patricia Arquette breaking down crying after Mason shrugs off the photo is exceptional, and what she goes on to say by way of explanation is not necessary.

This doesn't make any sense to me either; words are necessary sometimes, and her dialogue is what reveals the point of her reaction and what the writer and actor intend (if I'm correctly assuming you wouldn't have gotten "Mom realizes she will die alone" from the crying).

I'm with Eric, it was more like "Who IS this guy?"

It's possible to think both: "Wow, that's sweet. Who IS this guy?"

if I'm correctly assuming you wouldn't have gotten "Mom realizes she will die alone" from the crying

I might have, I might not have. I prefer it that way. (To use an exaggerated example, Stanley Kramer always tells me exactly what to think.)

I'd have to look at it a third time to be sure--I'd never even considered the other possibility--but to me it seemed clear that Arquette knew who the restaurant guy was.

Because she's a teacher and she remembers people!! It's a job skill. Her transformation from student to teacher was rly poignant IMO.

I mean, I sometimes have a hard time remembering students when they come up to me five years after they've left my school--sometimes just the name, but sometimes who it even is--but there you're talking about people I knew when they where 12 or 13 who are now 18; the change is sometimes incredible. I thought the restaurant guy looked more or less the same as when he was working on Arquette's house.

For the record, she didn't teach that guy for an entire year. More like she said two sentences to him while standing outside her house.

That's all we see, but fair point--we don't really know how long he's been doing work for her. Could be a few weeks, but maybe it was just one afternoon.

i really don't think they showed her advising a guy to go to school and then showed him thanking her for advising her to point out that she DIDN'T remember him

this is a richard linklater movie not a todd solondz movie

it was part of the whole "belated appreciation of mom" element of the last part of the film, and it resonated for me

i really enjoyed the film, and enough rang true that i don't want to critique the parts where i'm not in a position to say whether it did (i.e. mom's bad boyfriends). But I will say I felt less and less sympathy for the guy as he became more and more of a babe magnet.

Like, when his roommate shows up with two models and mushrooms ON THE FIRST DAY OF COLLEGE, he could have been shot in the head and i'd have been like, "welp, he had a good run...guess heaven needed an ethan hawke jr...lets get dinner"

i think linklater was totally aware of that though, based on hawke's reaction to the break-up

I know! But it isn't absurd to think she might have remembered him bc they had a meaningful interaction.

Todd Solondz's Bernie might've been good.

ll you were x-posting to eric, right? cuz i'm definitely on Team Mom Recognized Waiter (at least by story, if not on sight).

as a teacher myself who also sometimes forgets students I learned it takes a while to develop the public face when a stranger approaches and praises me; Arquette captured that awkwardness.

i'm definitely on Team Mom Recognized Waiter

let's have a softball game

as a teacher myself who also sometimes forgets students I learned it takes a while to develop the public face when a stranger approaches and praises me; Arquette captured that awkwardness.

otm. my mom was a prof and used to laugh about these kinds of public interactions. If anything I think she'd be more apt to remember this guy's story than she would a student she didn't have much personal interaction with.

otherwise the implication would be that arquette was blithely going around pitching night school to everyone she meets, and i don't think that was the intended takeaway

One thing that confused me both times were the exact details of Mason's break-up. I get the general outline--she sleeps with a university lacrosse player--but the prom figures in, and friend of the girlfriend's who gossips, and I didn't quite get how all that figured in. They talk about it while sitting on a bench.

i don't think we're really supposed to care about the specifics of the drama any more than his dad did.

ll you were x-posting to eric, right?

yeah sorry -- i was typing that on my phone after my class let out :)
i grew up with the sort of parents who couldn't go ANYWHERE without strangers (to me) coming up and talking to them, so i identified with the kids in that scenario too. when people dismissed the scene as contrived or cheesy, it didn't seem that way to me at all.

No, I think the thing that kept it from being contrived and cheesy is the seeming ambivalence or puzzlement Arquette greets the moment.

i mean, it was contrived in that out of 12 years of experiences, linklater chose to show us a moment where arquette did something nice and a moment years later where someone thanked her for it. that she didn't recognize him on sight and wasn't expecting the praise is just...believable.

one scene that kind of bugged me was the brief bit of bullying in the bathroom, just cuz there was no real second moment that followed. he just kind of shrugged, and got into sex and photography. never seemed at a loss for friends or anything.

Hadn't given it any thought, but yeah, the bullying scene was odd--detached from everything (except, I suppose, drunk dad's behaviour).

Another odd moment for me was Mason's reaction to his dad selling the car. It seems out of character that he would have been thinking about inheriting that car for years and years--the reaction of a son who's a jock, who lives for cars, and Mason is anything but that person. But I'll put it down to something someone posted upthread: the randomness of life. Sometimes you push a hidden button with someone, and upset them over something that seems to come right out of the blue. Also, dad's promise of the car works as something of a symbolic link between Mason and the absent father he misses.

I saw it as one of the unexpected and thoughtless ways in which parents can be cruel.

yeah it worked for me just as an example that while ethan hawke was obv a dream of a deadbeat dad, mason would still have some resentments

def had some "oh come on! how do you remember that?" "i was five, dad, not two" convos with my dad

man, that song at the family hootenanny

that alone may prevent a second viewing for me

I thought it was a decent Moldy Peaches thing. I did question the daughter's participation--even more than Mason, I would have thought she'd beg off.

That song didn't bother me too much, but I was damn glad that Ethan's "ohh baby boy cryin in the window thinkin of meeee" number was followed by the reveal he was now working in insurance.

i wonder if he was always intended to wind up in squaresville or if they rewatched the song footage and realized there was no other possibility

is that about Morbs?

They talk about him going to school to work in insurance during the camping trip when Mason is like 10? 11? years old

Or maybe earlier? It's mentioned pretty early on.

yeah, wasn't that after the Ode To Neglected Children? Don't think he was in school when he had the roomie

"hey, so i was thinking next year mason could visit me and charlie sexton on the road...that the band's taking off..."

"...uhh...yeah...about that, ethan..."

I should be able to remember from last night where exactly Hawke first mentions that's he taking actuarial courses, but I can't. Maybe the day they play football and go to the Astros game?

bullying scene wasn't weird to me, he wasn't the kind of kid who gets bullied all the time as part of hierarchy reinforcement but he wasn't the kind of kid assholes aren't assholes to. the shot right after, of him leaning against the wall after school w vonnegut under his arm, was just right: he had a shitty, lonely day. but it wasn't The Plot. whole movie was p much like that.

croup otm re the breakup. there were a bunch of elisions like that that made me feel like entire sections of other movies are just totally wasting my time. (no shit.) i was bored thru most of the second half of this movie but in the weeks since i saw it lil shots/lines keep coming to me unexpectedly and i like that they had such space to happen in, that they weren't propelling an Arc or even pointing in the same direction for the character. part of what the gimmick did for the movie was allow for a realistic level of personal selfcontradiction that would have maybe seemed more incoherent had it been different actors contradicting each other instead of literally the same kid.

also loved what others have described upthread, the moments when it would quietly tease you with a more dramatic version of events that doesn't happen, as in the scene w the circular saws or whatever. the scene towards the end w the cell-phones-while-driving was absolutely eerie: a whole alternate terrible universe is born in yr mind and mason is teenagerly oblivious to it. parent's-eye view.

yeah it wasn't a big thing re: bullying just that high school seemed like pretty smooth sailing afterwards, model girlfriend leaving him for a lacrosse player aside

what a difference Ethan Hawke's yapping puppy dog act makes when he's trying to keep his kid and himself entertained instead of Julie Delpy.

well really the big diff is that the kids aren't gonna call bullshit as much

well Mason Jr's silences and uh-huhs make him look more fatuous (see Annie Hall every time Alvy complains/promotes a book/advises).

xxxp ha well yeah i also feel u on the churlish well-fuck-THIS-kid-then feeling of the last few scenes. but then i thought abt it and was like haha i did alright in high school too i guess, despite having a dece handful of scenes like the one in the bathroom. ymmv tho i would that it did not.