Boyhood ending explained

What happens

Mason leaves home for college at eighteen. His mother Olivia breaks down, saying she expected more from her life. Mason hikes with new friends, and the film ends mid-conversation, with no big event, only a quiet day.

The last image

Mason sits with a girl he has just met in the Big Bend landscape, talking about how moments seem to pass through us, as the film simply stops.

What it says

The ending refuses a climax because the film's idea is that a life is made of ordinary days. Mason's talk of moments passing through us points to attention, not achievement, as what matters. His mother's grief makes the same point.