The Trailer For Richard Linklater’s ‘Boyhood’ Will Blow Your Mind, Probably Make You Cry

Fans of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy will be familiar with the guy’s preoccupation with time: the films in the continuing saga of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celeste (Julie Delpy) were famously shot over nine-year gaps, from the young lovers’ chance encounter on a Vienna-bound train in the ’95 original, through their unlikely Parisian reunion in 2004’s Before Sunset, to last year’s middle-aged, Greek Isles yell-a-thon, Before Midnight.

Now, the director has taken the time-drop idea of that series to its insane extreme: his new film Boyhood was shot over a period of 12 years, with a cast that ages before your very eyes. Young star Ellar Coltrane was just seven years old when the film started shooting in 2002; he’s now 19, you math illiterate.

Also starring Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as his equally aging parents, the films sees the kid go from playing in backyard streams to playing with Wiis; from rocking primary school bowl-cuts to high school slacker-parts; from fresh-faced innocence to weirdo moustaches and arty dark rooms. It’s a life, in a movie, and it’ll probably make you cry your face off.

The film, which premiered to rave reviews at Sundance earlier this year, is due out in cinemas in July. Try not to think about how old you’ll be by then.