If you told me Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Dazed and Confused) started shooting a film 12 years ago, I would have called you crazy. Well as it turns out, he did do that, and wow, what a movie.

“Boyhood” is a story of Dad (Ethan Hawke), Mommy (Patricia Arquette) and their son, Mason, in a career-defining role from Ellar Coltrane. Starting with Mason at the age of 5, the audience is treated to a one of a kind experience as the film covers his life up until his 18th birthday.

The film begins with Mason and his sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) moving into a new house with their mom. As she struggles with raising her two children while working and taking college classes, Dad is introduced to the story as the typical dead-beat type.

The movie is scripted as a traditional coming of age story, but with a twist. Each scene in “Boyhood” is actually a new year in Mason’s life. By filming and cutting the movie this way, the filmmakers have essentially documented a year-to-year arc of Mason, and by association, Coltrane.

The story itself actually isn’t important or really even the focus of the movie. Nothing entirely exciting or out of the ordinary happens to Mason. In fact, if this movie were filmed traditionally with different aged actors playing the roles, the movie would have fallen flat.

And that’s where Linklater’s brilliant directing comes in. The movie isn’t capturing the story of “Boyhood,” so much as it’s capturing the actors growing and changing. Each scene and situation is structured so authentically that it stops feeling like a feature film and starts feeling like a Hollywood budgeted home-movie.

Watching this movie is literally like watching somebody grow up right before your eyes. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. Despite the film’s three-hour run time, I didn’t notice it dragging at all. In fact, when I knew the conclusion was nearing, I hoped a little more could be squeezed out of the story because I didn’t want it to end.

Mason’s character development is so real and touches so close to home that you’d figure Linklater based the screenplay off of your own life. Late in the movie, Mason captures the question the movie imposes by asking, “Dad, there’s no real magic in the world, right?”

No, Mason, there is. And you’ve helped create it. You’ve also helped create one of the best movies of the decade.