It is given particular interest through the unusual background of having been shot over 11 years with the same actors, following a boy's childhood and adolescence as his parents divorce, recouple with others and move house again and again. Despite any acquaintance you may have with the director's style, it will still come as a shock how little of dramatic magnitude actually happens beyond the normal twists and turns of life. It's both purgatively refreshing, and yet at the same time rather dull in the end over the best part of three hours, with utterly lifelike conversations leading nowhere in particular, as they would, and the lead character mumbling and shuffling from one year to the next, so obviously Linklater projecting his own childhood onto the persona, who of course has to have unformulated artistic ambitions. All that said, I'll always appreciate a film that is this honest and gives you room to breathe. Just don't expect anything revelatory: anyone telling you otherwise is badly contaminated by the prevalent overdramatised dross, and that includes most jaded critics.
7/10
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