The ‘Boyhood’ Team On How to Keep Up the Awards Momentum
Such was the case yesterday afternoon at a luncheon in celebration of IFC Films summer smash “Boyhood,” which occurred as the New York Film Critics Circle announced their winners. “Boyhood” star Patricia Arquette arrived at the lunch already a winner, having been named as this year’s Best Supporting Actress just before cocktails were served. And mere minutes into the lunch, director Richard Linklater was revealed as the Best Director winner, soon followed by the news that the film nabbed Best Picture honors.
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Asked what it’s like to win for film that’s truly an ensemble effort (Linklater, and stars Ellar Coltrane and Ethan Hawke were also in attendance), Arquette said, “I can’t really separate myself from everybody or the project. I feel like everything that’s good for the movie for any one person is good for the movie. It feels like The Five Musketeers or something. We’re all in it together. I wouldn’t feel comfortable feeling a different way about it. It was really a collaboration.”
The film’s success with the NYFCC didn’t come as a huge surprise given how warmly critics have embraced Linklater’s indie epic, ever since it first screened at Sundance in January. Still, it’s rare for a film to sustain awards momentum this long into its theatrical release. Unlike most awards fare, IFC opened “Boyhood” in the summer, as counter-programming to the wave of blockbusters that blanketed theaters all season long.
“IFC has kept the momentum going with a whip,” Arquette laughed. “We live in this really fast-turnover culture where everything’s out for a week and then it’s gone. So to see this movie have legs like this and a resonance like this — I think if affects people in some subterranean way. It’s very subtle. I’ve never had people come up to me and say, ‘I just had to call up my mom after and tell her I love her.’ Two couples told me that they decided to have their baby after seeing the movie.”
Asked to comment on how they’ve kept the momentum going for “Boyhood,” Linklater said, “I just wrapped a movie, so I haven’t done a damn thing. But I’m back in the saddle. They told me, ‘We own you for 10 days.’ It’s like a family reunion. It’s better to come back to it, having done something else; something else I’m excited about. But ‘Boyhood’ has its own shelf life. If we’re still here talking about it, it’s all cool.”
“Boyhood” is still playing in select theaters.
