Richard Linklater’s 12 year project, “Boyhood,” captures the life of protagonist Mason Evans Jr. from ages five to 18 transitioning from boyhood to maturity.

Over the course of 12 years, actors Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Lorelei Linklater and Ethan Hawke met each summer for three weeks of filming.

Released on Sept. 4, the film has been nominated for 120 awards and won an additional 148 awards (including three Golden Globes), according to Universal Pictures.

“I wanted to make a movie that captured childhood,” Linklater said in a 10-minute documentary about the process of filming. “It was an opportunity to see parents evolve as well as kids.”

The movie begins Mason, 5, laying on the grass and staring into the sky until his mom comes out of a parent-teacher conference.

Like much of the movie, this seemingly insignificant scene captures actions and emotions that children and parents of all ages can relate to.

Linklater said in the documentary that he cast Coltrane as Mason when he was only five years old because after meeting with many different kids, “[Coltrane] seemed the most thoughtful and ethereal. He wasn’t even reading yet at that age, but he became like the son I never had, maturing alongside my own daughter.”

Although Los Angeles Times critic Kennet Turan said in his review that Boyhood’s “narrative feels fatally cobbled together, veering haphazardly from underdone moments to overdone melodramatic contrivance,” this film effortlessly uses the simple story line, relatable characters and beautiful message to take the everyday lives of a family and create a phenomenal story about life, love and growing up.

“This movie is about trying to live in the present,” Hawke said in the documentary.

I would recommend this movie to those who can sympathize with the trials with self-discovery, acceptance and sacrifice in the midst of adolescence.

This movie is Rated R for “language including sexual references, and for teen drug and alcohol use,” according to Rotten Tomatoes.