The "Boyhood" effect in Tv and the big screen

Okay so on my "LGTB+ movie recommendations" post I briefly mentioned something called the "Boyhood" effect while talking about Moonlight, meaning that in Moonlight nothing really important happens and the character doesn´t really have an aspiration or anything he or she has to achieve, you just see the character going through some meaningful or not as meaningful moments and at a certain point of the movie it ends and you kind of feel like nothing really happened.

Most of the movies, as I said in my previous post, have an introduction, core, and end, and these movies which I´m gonna talk about have the "Boyhood" effect, and they all lack the average and usual movie narrative.

Boyhood is a 2014 movie directed by Richard Linklater that was shot in 12 years following the growth and different stages of the life of a boy called Mason from his 5s to his 18s, more less. We see him growing throughout the whole movie and we see him going through tons of meaningful moments like her mom divorcing several abusive and alcoholic husbands and him going to college, for example. The movie ends with Mason and a college girl hiking and the hiking girl says a very wise quote which has the essence of the whole movie "You know how everyone is always saying "seize the moment"? I don´t really, I´m kinda thinking it´s the other way round. You know, like, the moment seizes us.". And then the movie ends. I feel like this type of movies, the one in which we see just the characters going through experiences and we get to know and emphasize with the characters in a very deep way is really interesting and emotional, as the "lack" of structure makes the movie focussing on the characters mainly.

Now, I´ll mention some other movies which I consider to have the "Boyhood" effect and which I personally really love.

Lady Bird, 2017.

I´ve already talked of Lady Bird on several occasions as I´m highly obsessed with it and it´s one of my favorite movies. This awesome movie written and directed by the goddess Greta Gerwig is about the last year of high school of an average white teen living in Sacramento in the 2000s. The movie has tons of dialogues which we don´t really hear completely, every scene in Lady Bird, or most of them, starts with an already started conversation and through that conversations, we really get to know and emphasize with the main character, Christine, and even though she makes some really stupid decisions you start to understand her. The movie ends at a certain point but the movie could have last 3 hours more and would have watched them.

Frances Ha, 2012.

This movie directed by Noah Baumbach about the life of a 20-something-year-old young woman living in NY who's life is pretty messy is for me like the adult Lady Bird. It´s written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, so that explains why the structure is kind of similar. In this movie, as happens with Lady Bird and Boyhood we see Frances Halloway going through some moments and experiences, and also, tons and tons of dialogue, which makes us feeling really attached to the main character while watching the movie.

The Florida Project, 2017.

This amazing and heartbreaking movie which I´ll probably make a review soon directed by Sean Baker also lacks the usual narrative structure. This movie has an introduction, which is like the first 20 minutes of the movie but the rest of the movie, in my opinion, feels like a continuation of the introduction, and even though many things happen there´s not something that the characters have to achieve or anything like that. The movie ends, on the other side, is not the same as in the movies I´ve previously mentioned, the movie ends because it has to end because of what happens on the end scene, the movie could go on, of course, but it´s not like in the other movie in which the ending doesn´t feel like an ending, in this movie the ending does feel like an ending.

Moonlight, 2016.

I've already talked about his movie and how it´s structure has the "Boyhood" effect so I´ll be brief in order to not be repetitive. This movie is probably the movie in this post that resembles the most the Boyhood as we see the character grow up, not just as a person but also physically and we see him through all the stages of life, excluding the third age. This movie, as all of the previous movies, also has lots of dialogue and when the movie ends it feels like the movie could have go on for more time.

Girls, 2012-2017.

I think that most of the sitcoms and popular animation shows like Friends, TBBT and The Simpsons also follow this structure as they all are about some characters which we see evolve and change thought the whole series but I don´t think this series really have the "Boyhood" effect, because in my opinion, in order to have the "Boyhood" effect the show or movie has to have long dialogues and also the movie vibe and directing has to be more indie and alternative than the usual movies or shows so I´m not gonna have them in this post.

So, Girls, this amazing HBO show mainly written and directed by Lena Dunham, starring Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Zosia Mamet is basically 6 seasons on the life of this 4 average NY girls, the show starts when the girls are on their 20s and are young and immature and through the whole show we see the characters going through tons of experiences which make them be how we are and we get to understand them. By the end of season 6, they have all become adults, and even though they are still kind of immature and they are still young, they feel much more than adults. This show mainly focusses on Hannah, Lena Dunham´s character, and she really evolves through the whole show and it´s really beautiful to see how she becomes what she becomes.

Fleabag, 2017-2019.

This two-season amazing hilarious show created by the amazing Phoebe Waller-Bridge starring herself as a 20-something-year-old woman living in London who has 20-something-year-old problems and is kind of weird. This show doesn´t really have an argument as happens with most of the movies and the show previously mentioned and the end of season two, which is the final season, evokes again that feeling of that the show could have gone on and on as the character herself is more entertaining than having an actual plot.

Okay, so in concussion, all these movies have the following characteristics:

• Long dialogues.

• An unexpected or could have continued ending.

• Very deep character study, we really get to know the main characters.

That´s it, hope this post was interesting! Thanks a lot for reading :)