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Beginners [Blu-ray] (2011)

Ewan McGregor , Christopher Plummer , Mike Mills  |  R |  Blu-ray
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)

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Product Details

  • Actors: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer
  • Directors: Mike Mills
  • Format: AC-3, Blu-ray, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
  • Language: English (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1), Spanish (DTS 5.1)
  • Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
  • Dubbed: Spanish
  • Region: All Regions
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rated: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Universal
  • DVD Release Date: November 15, 2011
  • Run Time: 104 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B004A8ZWVA
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,163 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • Learn more about "Beginners [Blu-ray]" on IMDb

Special Features

None.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The impact of parents on their children has rarely been captured with the wit and compassion of Beginners, a sweet comedy about love and fear. Ewan McGregor, perhaps the most charming actor alive, plays a graphic artist named Oliver, whose elderly father Hal (played with a deft mix of twinkle and gravitas by Christopher Plummer) comes out as gay after Oliver's mother dies. Alas, Hal also discovers he has terminal cancer--but he crams as much life into the time left to him as he can. Beginners skips back and forth between Oliver's last months with his father and his first months with a young actress, Anna (Mélanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds), towards whom he feels a mesmerizing attraction… and with whom he shares a paralyzing fear of intimacy. All of which sounds ponderous and drab, but Beginners is the exact opposite. Writer-director Mike Mills brings a wonderfully light and wistfully humorous touch to these heavy topics, as well as an eye for engaging visuals. Mills and his outstanding cast delicately weave the different threads of Oliver's life into a delicate but emotionally potent whole. Mills's previous film, Thumbsucker, showed promise; Beginners fulfills it. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

When graphic designer Oliver (Ewan McGregor) meets free-spirited Anna (Melanie Laurent) shortly after his father (Christopher Plummer) has passed away, Oliver realizes just how much of a beginner he is when it comes to long-lasting romantic love. Memories of his father, who, following the death of his wife of 45 years, came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized and wonderfully tumultuous gay life, encourages Oliver to open himself up to the potential of a true relationship.

Customer Reviews

A quirky movie, but very moving and emotional - in a good way. Daina B. Hodges  |  18 reviewers made a similar statement
Every character was excellent and the film was emotionally addicting. CeeCee  |  20 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
66 of 72 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
There's an emotional acuity to this bittersweet 2011 dramedy that makes the loose structure of the first-person narrative easier to take than one would expect. Director/screenwriter Mike Mills bases his movie on a series of events that occurred in his own life. Just months after Mills' own mother passed away, his 75-year-old father announced that despite their 44-year marriage he was gay and intended to spend his remaining days exploring the hidden side of his libido. Cancer cut short those plans but not the life affirming spirit with which he explored his new lifestyle. It certainly helps that Mills cast 81-year-old Christopher Plummer as the father since his naturally erudite manner complements his character Hal's innately fey quality in a way that makes his late-blooming emotional emancipation all the sweeter. It's a lovely performance well worth remembering during next year's award season.

The protagonist of the story is Oliver, a sensitive cartoonist who is nearing forty and finding himself unable to sustain a lasting relationship. Family dysfunction has taken its toll on Oliver given that he discovers six months after his mother Georgia's death that Hal was in the closet most of Oliver's life, thus explaining why his parents never appeared to connect emotionally. Oliver is obviously concerned a similar fate of repressed feelings will befall him as he rummages through Hal's things after his death. Flashbacks show a childhood dominated by Georgia's eccentric manner with Hal relegated to the shadows of doorways always on his way to another business trip. Meanwhile, closer to the present, Oliver meets a free-spirited French actress named Anna, whose flirtatious manner gives way to her own vulnerability since she has her own family-related challenges in developing romantic connections.
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53 of 63 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely moving July 2, 2011
Format:DVD
I went with eagerness to this film. I tend to see many gay-themed movies. This one moved me enormously, and it wasn't the gay character, Christopher Plummer, who most affected me, although he was very, very good. What hit me hard about the movie was Ewan McGregor's deeply sensitive portrayal of a lonely man. This movie is not about how a straight son comes to grips with his gay father who comes out very late in life. It's about a man approaching middle age (McGregor) who realizes he has never really loved. I am rarely (and I mean rarely) been moved to tears in a movie. This was an exception.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars WHEN, AND HOW, DO WE BEGIN TO BE OUR TRUE SELF? March 1, 2012
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
When do we stop being our true self-- and why? And when, and why, after so many years, do we begin to be our true self again? These questions are asked and answered in Mike Mills' autobiographical film "Beginners."
Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor;, playing a film variation of Mills himself) is a graphic designer who can't seem to communicate his feelings or maintain a long-term emotional relationship. Oliver, though not verbally expressive or emotionally demonstrative, does express his emotions through graphic design and illustration. The movie flashes back into the past and flashes forward again into the present or more recent past. As we see Oliver's relationship with his parents, we see how he became so emotionally conditioned. His parents endured a distant 45 year marriage, in an environment where emotions and secrets were never revealed. After his mother's (Mary Page Keller) death, his 75 year old father Hal (Christopher Plummer; "Hamlet," "The Sound Of Music", "Inside Man") finally comes out of the closet as a gay man. "And I don't want to be just theoretically gay," he says, "I want to do something about it." And, in the final years of his life, Hal embraces his life with gusto and passion ; becoming an active member of the gay community and having a loving relationship with a much younger man (Goran Visnjig). In the last years of his life, Hal finally begins to be his true self, and Oliver finally begins to know and love the father that he never knew before. In the end, Hal refuses to acknowledge the cancer that will end the life he has just begun to live.
In the present day, inspired by his father's example, Oliver decides to embark upon a relationship with the beguiling and seemingly free-spirited Anna (Melanie Laurent).
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19 of 24 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven December 4, 2011
Format:Amazon Instant Video
Beginners is the latest film by independent film auteur Mike Mills and is probably is his most noteworthy film since 2005's Thumbsucker. It stars proven talent such as Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station) and Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds). The film's central plot focuses on Oliver, a slightly disenchanted graphic designer whose father Hal comes out as gay after the death of his mother. Although Oliver takes the news comparatively well, he reflects on his childhood and begins to realize what was behind the silent discord between his two parents. At the same time, he reflects on a dissolved relationship with Anna, a French actress with whom he had a relationship that never bloomed into what he really expected it to.

As an independent film, it takes on the independent credo: All characters, no action. It deals purely with the characters and their interactions with one another. Christopher Plummer emerges as the most interesting in this understated affair. Plummer, who always is in some way likeable whether it be because of his penchant for the linguistic or his fatherly voice qualities, takes on a different role than he's ever played before. His character after his coming out involves himself in the gay nightlife and becomes educated to gay lingo and culture in the 21st Century while getting a young boyfriend with an old man fetish. He even shares a kiss with his younger co-star.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite films of the last decade
Beginners is a multi-faceted movie. Father and son relationships. A man and woman finding it hard to commit. Gay history. A story of survival. Read more
Published 7 days ago by D. B. Katz
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, Heart Warming
Beautiful movie about how people reinvent themselves and relationships change but love remains constant through it all. Highly recommended, but for liberal minded.
Published 28 days ago by Jean V. Murphy
5.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Film
I recommend this movie to everyone I know (anyone 30+ years old) . I love this movie, obviously, that's why I bought it :-P
Published 1 month ago by Johnny Prime
4.0 out of 5 stars It's a good movie
The movie in and of itself, to me at least, is about people, or, a person, that really just doesn't know exactly how to deal with relationships. Read more
Published 1 month ago by TM
4.0 out of 5 stars Nice acting
Sensitive and smart material. All around good non Hollywood story. Good dog too. See it. See the film. Ok. Go.
Published 1 month ago by Peanut Eater
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and Moving Film
A must see. Incredible acting. This movie dealt with hard, emotional issues in a very thoughtful way. It won't disappoint.
Published 2 months ago by D. Furno
3.0 out of 5 stars Beginners Starting Out Slow, but Like the Tortoise Comes Out a Winner.
I ordered this after watching a trailer, with such a star studded cast how could it not be wonderful. Read more
Published 2 months ago by 4Nbahu
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous movie!
This movie is so delicate and sweet....Plus i love Ewan McGregor. You have to watch, to believe how great this movie really is and you have to watch a few times to appreciate... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Nichole Haase
5.0 out of 5 stars Being True to Life
This film really has moved me in so many ways that it is hard to descibe in words, justifiably. It is a film that one needs to see, especially in the mad-rat-race we all exsist... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Janorm
4.0 out of 5 stars It's never too late to change
You're never too old to change. That's the message of "Beginners," a muted indie drama about two men - a father and a son - who alter the course of their lives in unexpected and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Roland E. Zwick
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