So why is this movie considered the favorite to win the Oscars this year? It has 6 nominations (including best picture) and has already won the Golden Globes and the BAFTA and Patricia Arquette is winning every single award possible in the supporting role category. And I genuinely don’t know why and no one was able to explain it to me.

The most interesting thing about “Boyhood” is the fact that its director Richard Linklater (nominated for best director) had the vision to shoot it during 12 years. So we can see the same actors aging before us with no special effects needed. This is truly remarkable, I admit. A lot of things could have gone wrong in 12 years, preventing the movie from being made. But it all worked out well and the movie is a huge success among critics. This doesn’t mean, however, that everybody involved in the movie stopped their lives for 12 years and were only shooting it. In fact, it was shot in 45 days spread through 2002 and 2013.

The story shows the life of Mason Evans, Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) and the challenges a boy faces growing up. It also shows the lives of his extremely annoying sister Samantha (Lorelai Linklater, the director’s daughter) and their divorced parents (played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette, both nominated in the supporting actors categories). So we see the dynamic of the families: the mother’s failed marriages, the father’s new family and the desires and doubts of a boy from elementary school until college.

The cast is really good, but it doesn’t justify Patricia Arquette winning everything. Almost all the other actresses in this category have better performances, in my opinion.

So, to sum up, by the end of the movie everybody in the cast was 12 years older and I felt like I aged too, not in a good way.