Boyhood: A Cinematic Journey through Adolescence

Boyhood is a cinematic time lapse over the span of 12 years documenting a boy named Mason, from the years 6 to 18 going through the struggles and triumphs of childhood and adulthood. The purpose of the movie is to illustrate how Mason travels through young adulthood and his experiences to show how it shapes him as a person. The independent movie gained much praise from audiences and critics alike. It cannot be argued, however, that it is like no other coming of age movie.

It starts of with Mason at 6, going through the stage of curiosity. He is a child of divorce; his dad is in Alaska working on a boat. He has an older sister who is definitely going through the id stage of her development, maximizing satisfaction and doing everything in her power to get her brother into trouble. His mother, whom seems to be going through Eric Erikson 's intimacy versus isolation throughout most of this movie, tends to pick the wrong men to date. She described at the beginning of the movie that first she was someone 's daughter and then someone 's mother, which signals

In a source of irony in the movie towards the end, a Hispanic waiter tells Olivia that she changed his life a few years ago, that she 's a great person and that they should listen to her, when this entire movie, she did not listen to her kids. For example, there was a scene where Mason and Olivia were in the car and Mason asked why did Olivia marry Bill (the second husband) and Olivia said he has good qualities and at least they had a family. Mason responded with, "We already had a family." Granted, she did take them out of a abusive home with her second husband, but she was a situation where it was absolutely paramount to get the kids to safety. But perhaps she is not entirely to blame. As a young mother who had gotten divorced; then remarried to an abusive husband, then divorced again to remarry an alcoholic veteran. Perhaps she is much of a victim of divorce as the kids