I went to see this movie today. I had to go down to Dallas to see it since it is still in pretty limited release. It goes wider on Friday. I did not really know what to expect. It has gotten great reviews (rotten tomatoes currently at 99/92), but it was also 2 hours 45 minutes. I was not sure about sitting through that long of an "art house" film.
It was worth the time.
It was shot over 12 years and they had the same cast and even the same recurring characters over the years. It is quite interesting since the cast ages without doing the actor switch as it goes on. I was really wondering how they were going to possibly do it. They did it very well. From one scene to the next sometimes there was a 3-6 month jump. Since there are 2 kids (the main character the boy and his sister) they literally age before your eye.
The story starts with the boy in first grade and ends when he starts college. At the end I found myself wanting more. It of course could be a decade+ before the next one comes out if they continued it for a sequel.
It is not a movie about the high/low points of growing up. Yes some of them are covered, but it is mostly about the everyday things the boy does and experiences. It is done in such away that one forgets that it is a scripted movie and the characters in real life are not related, not living together and only come together a few times a year to shoot a scene or two. It is easy to get lost in the movie and think it really was happening.
It is not compelling because the boy or his family is special, but because it is just ordinary life. On the surface it seems like it would be the most boring subject on earth, a family that could just exist anywhere. Yet somehow you are drawn into their lives like you are part of the family and by the end of the movie you feel like you are suffering a loss because you will never see them again. I would say it is like watching a family show on TV for years, watching the kids grow up, you feel you know them after a while, then the series ends.
I know it will not appeal to everyone, but I would not be surprised if it received some Academy Award nominations. It is truly an unique movie, and it will not be replicated for quite a while (given that this one took 12 years)....
