This wonderful scene perfectly sums up the poignancy of growing up and learning the heartbreaking truth about the world. His dad, tries to spare him the pain of disillusionment, as parents do, by providing an example of "magic" in the world. Undeterred, Mason asserts his understanding and growth by repeating that there are no "elves."
This movie is brilliant for the way it reflects the ordinary moments of life.
This was probably the best line of dialogue in the whole movie. Which is kinda sad for a film that is almost 3 hours long.
I just saw this for the first time the other day and while the concept is good, this is just not a very interesting film. Mundane characters can work in a movie but this was hard to like. I know the critics praised this film but wow, I could name a lot of films that fall under the 'Drama' category that I liked a lot more than this.
Still, it's an interesting take on film-making, I mean, to shoot it over the course of 12 years must have been quite the challenge I would think. Ballsy move for sure, but you would think over the course of 12 years they could find something to film that was a little more intriguing than this. I mean, we've seen the drunk idiots in films beating their wives and whatnot, we've seen the coming of age films that feature kids trying to find themselves, we've seen the divorced parents sharing the kids throughout the year etc..etc.. It just didn't bring anything new to the genre other than it was filmed over 12 years.
Still, I liked parts of it, it portrays life situations fairly well if you can get passed the overly mundane characters. I mean, even when the man beats his wife, everyone is like "ohh... okay, he's beating her, pass the salt please". lol..
If you want to add some drama to a film for the sake of adding drama, it has to be, well... you know... 'dramatic'.
I think this is where the film falls short. Again, mundane characters just didn't work here. The best at doing this right now is director, Yorgos Lanthimos, his films are quite intriguing, yet still maintain that slow pacing with methodical acting that just makes more sense the way Lanthimos does it.
Anyway, I'll give it a 5.2 out of 10. But if you did like this, I would recommend the following. Try them out and compare.. all better films in my view -
The Lobster
Blue Jasmine
Manchester By The Sea
The Station Agent
You made your point well.
Often I want to defend an artist as having created something Better than we appreciate.
Their vision has a higher standard and we lack the patience to grapple with it.
But sometimes a Misfire is just a misfire, or perhaps in this case, not as compelling as had been hoped.
I love the concept and like the people involved.
Maybe there's a better movie in here than we realize - or maybe not.
It was hard for me to get into it. I think to some extent, the characters didn't have a lot of charisma and you kinda need this when making a drama, or any film for that matter. I don't think it was the director's fault or the actors, it was probably the writing for the most part. Unfortunately, it's just not a very interesting movie.
And I do like the actors in it but something about it just didn't quite work. I really liked Patricia Arquette in that movie True Romance. I would recommend that one too, if you like this and liked her in it. Although, she's completely different in this movie. Ethan Hawke has been in some good movies too. Ohh well, everyone has different views on movies. Some people did like Boyhood and that's fine.