Boyhood: Richard Linklater shows in this film that he is well aware that the most special effect is the story; furthermore, that the story can be unadorned, as long as it’s earnest and well-told. There’s nothing that is as rich as life itself, after all; there’s nothing that suggests more how engaging this film is than the fact that the periods that aren’t on the screen are missed. The tenacity behind this project is incredible, but that wouldn’t amount to much if the result was not this rich and consistently good. Ellar Coltrane is uniformly great as he grows; Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke are also great presences; the acting, like the film, is not about big moments, but such subtlety is more than welcome.