Customer Reviews

Beginners

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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. Mills intertwines his characters' destinies with the unwieldy nature of life in all its familiarity. There is little one could call pat and predictable in this film.

As Oliver, Ewan McGregor (last seen in the underrated The Ghost Writer) has never come across more comfortably onscreen, making it easy to empathize with his plight without the contrivance of standard Hollywood convention. He has a nice rapport with Mélanie Laurent (she was the vengeful Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds), and her beguiling portrayal of Anna reminds me of Natassja Kinski during her early Polanski years. Playing Hal's much-younger lover Andy, Goran Visnjiæ does a surprisingly liberated turn completely submerging any remnants of his ER character, while another TV veteran, Mary Page Keller, brings a nice subversive edge to her performance as Oliver's somewhat hardened mother who had long ago accepted her husband's sexual orientation. This is a movie of small moments and quiet revelations, so it won't suit everyone's attention span, but it is worthwhile viewing for more patient, discriminating viewers.

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. The film provides very interesting tidbits in gay history, which are quite informative considering that GLBT studies and history are not taught in school leaving most GLBT people to investigate on their own or to take GLBT studies at certain colleges that offer GLBT course work.

The problem with Beginners is that it moves far too slowly and that the entire subplot between Ewan McGregor and Mélanie Laurent is not very interesting nor seemingly relevant to the more interesting aspects of Christopher Plummer's character. The film would have been better served if the film only explored Plummer's character and McGregor's relationship with him and his mother during his early life. With over 25% of the film devoted to a storyline that isn't interesting and moving too slowly to the more interesting causes the film to lag in too many areas derailing its flow and making the whole thing uneven in its entertainment value. Despite Plummer and the interest in gay history, the film falls short of an independent masterpiece.

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.

BEGINNERS is an apt title for this quiet, gentle, loving film created by writer/director Mike Mills. It is so refreshing when films of this caliber take on controversial (to some) subject matter and instead of bandstanding the issues, elect to weave them in and out of a tapestry of a story about how we each find our identity and satisfy our need of love in a world not always conducive to emotional 'beginners'.

The film opens in 2003. 38 year old graphic designer Oliver (Ewan McGregor) has just lost his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) to stage IV lung cancer. Hal is alone - his mother Georgia (Mary Page Keller) - died from cancer five years ago. Oliver packs his father's belongings, comes across Hal's correspondence which he saves, and takes possession of Hal's Jack Russell terrier, and attempts to go about his life as a flailing designer. His sole friend Elliot (Kai Lennox) tries to pry Oliver from his intense fear of intimacy by taking Oliver, costumed as Sigmund Freud, to a Halloween party where Oliver, behind the protective disguise as Freud can sit by a couch and offer 'therapy' to the party guests. One of those guests is Anna (Mélanie Laurent) who has laryngitis and therefore must communicate with Oliver's Freud by means of a little tablet and pencil (Anna's equal fear of intimacy shield). Some sparks unite and Oliver and Anna begin a tenuous relationship. Oliver shares his father's death, but more important he shares his father's life: when Georgia died, Hal came out as a gay man at age 75 and plunged into his new life with gusto, finding a lover named Andy (Goran Visnjic) and found happiness being his true self - sharing all of this with Oliver who was completely accepting of his father's beginning. The scenes describing his father and his mother are presented as flashbacks as Oliver explains his history to Anna. And we soon realize that Hal's love of life as a gay man influences Oliver to try intimacy - and the traveling actress Anna shares her own fears of intimacy as they explore their growing relationship.

One of the innumerable joys of this film is how Mike Mills uses the ever-present adorable dog (even giving us dog thoughts in subtitles as the story develops!) who is able to relate to all of the characters - Hal, Andy, Oliver, Elliot, Anna - in a rather exemplary manner! The scenes between Oliver as a young boy (Keegan Boos) with both Hal and Georgia are very touching: Georgia knows of Hal's sexuality and accepts it, except since Hal is not Jewish and Georgia is she explains to young Oliver that is why Hal is not more passionate! The influence of Hal on Oliver in Hal's final months encourages Oliver to seek a truly meaningful relationship - and that is where the story leaves us - wondering if Oliver and Anna have that beginning.

Ewan McGregor gives his best performance yet and Christopher Plummer finds just the right level of humor and angst to make us love his character completely. The entire cast is excellent. The film is accompanied by a genteel musical score by Roger Neill, Dave Palmer and Brian Reitzell. But it is to the ultimate credit of Mike Mills for writing and directing this little masterpiece about human relations. It is enriching to see; it deserves to be nominated as best film of the year. Grady Harp, November 11

I want everyone to go out and watch this movie now. Honestly, this film is so powerful and moving and certainly far removed from anything I was expecting that mere words cannot convey how much I truly do adore this film. From a purely emotional standpoint, it may be the finest film I've seen this year for it brought me to a place I haven't been in a long time; completely swelled within my own realities captured by someone and something else entirely.

`Beginners' is beautiful.

`Beginners' tells the story of Oliver. Oliver is not a very lucky lover. He hasn't had a stable relationship and quite frankly, he seems allergic to them. His father has recently died, and he lives in a world consumed in beginning to understand who his father really was. Shortly after his mother's passing, Oliver's father Hal came out of the closet. Hal has been gay his whole life and yet he loved his wife and she wanted to `fix him', convinced that her love could do the trick. He lived a heterosexual life with her, but now that she was gone he wanted to explore the life he kept locked away for so long. This obviously took Oliver by surprise, but watching his father's eyes brighten and his soul open up he became to understand a sense of happiness he had never seen in his years growing up. After losing his father, Oliver has a chance meeting with the beautiful Anna. While he at first seems resistant, her charm and allure is too much for him, and soon Oliver finds himself experiencing something he didn't understand, but through memories of his father's growing spirit, Oliver is able to accept the gift he has been given.

I'm just floored at the sincerity in this film's screenplay, for the way it fleshes out these characters is just amazing. Oliver is sullen and lost yet completely consumed with this young woman who offers an answer to his apathetic sadness. Ewan McGregor is outstanding in the role; finding such depth of emotion in those eyes. Christopher Plummer is on his way to winning an Oscar, and rightfully so. He delivers a fearless performance, one that is not only brave because of subject (is it really brave to play gay nowadays?) but because of the way he just jumps right in. He builds a believable and grounded older man who is ecstatic to finally be living his life, even though he's at the end of it. But, for me, this film was all about Melanie Laurent. Her performance as Anna was so delightful, so soulful and full of sensual allure. She played with McGregor with such flawless chemistry, and yet she understood the importance of driving it home when needed; and her breakdown after moving in with Oliver was so magically believable...so soft and understated in all the right ways.

The beauty of `Beginners' comes from the way that it conveys its message with subtle touches and a real sense of being. The idea that we can learn so much from our parents is a strong guiding light here. Our parents help form who we become, whether in a good or bad way, but sometimes we miss out by disregarding their actions as not influential. Hal's decision to be open with himself and those around him affected Oliver in ways unexpected, but their impact was revolutionary. `Beginners' is, above all else, an ode to that bond between father and son; and yet there is more here that makes it even deeper and more effecting to those of us not sincerely attached to that aspect of the prose. The fact that new beginnings are possible to those who make them is a compelling argument made here as well. A friend of mine likes to use the phrase, "it's not how you start but how you finish" and I find that truth to be made so eminent in this beautiful film.

To call this a masterpiece is truly a subjective thought, since a large part of why I adore this film is for personal reasons, but from an emotional perspective, `Beginners' gets everything right.

38 year old graphic designer Oliver (Ewan McGregor) meets zany, free-spirited Anna at a party, and they have a lot in common, include a past that demonstrates that they seem to be incapable of maintaining a loving relationship. At the time, Oliver is still reeling from the recent death of his father (Christopher Plummer), who shocked him four years earlier, when he came out as gay at age 75. Dad left behind his Jack Russell terrier, Arthur (who provides comic relief with his profound thoughts appearing as subtitles throughout the film), and his much younger boyfriend (Goran Visnjic).

Oliver's current story is told with frequent flashbacks to his childhood (where it was obvious to him that there was emotional detachment between his parents, though he had no idea why at the time) as well as his father's exploits after embracing his gay self. The characters are fairly realistic (The depiction of gay seniors is unheard of in mainstream films), and the acting is very good, deserving the "best actor" discussions. It's a story about love, commitment and acceptance, and it is told well, though the constant drama between Oliver and Anna frustrated me as a viewer. DVD includes a "making of" video with writer/director Mike Mills (who based Plummer's character on his father), a preliminary "teaser" trailer, and feature commentary with Mills. Four stars out of five.

BEGINNERS has many nice elements to it, and it is a sweet movie overall. But it is also very uneven and frustrating too.

The essential concept is what interested me (that and the actors) in watching this. A son (Ewan McGregor), well into his thirties and still quite single, has to grapple with the death of his mother, followed closely by the announcement from his father (Christopher Plummer) that he is gay and intends to start enjoying an open, gay lifestyle. And not long after, the father develops cancer and is gone all too soon. I'm not spoiling anything, because we learn all this in the opening moments of the film, which is a series of intertwining flashbacks. One series shows the young boy experiencing his home life growing up with a distant father and a moody, unhappy mother. The other shows him observing how happy and generous and open his father has become once out of the closet. And the last shows his father's last days...when the old man was still warm, funny and open. Finally, mixed in with the flashbacks are scenes of a developing romance between McGregor and Anna, an actress and "free spirit" (Melanie Laurent, so wonderful in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS).

Plummer is fantastic in the film, and the Oscar talk is certainly deserved. When Plummer was younger (back in the SOUND OF MUSIC DAYS)...I don't think he was a very good actor. Stiff and cold. In his old age, he's given some marvelous performances. It's as though he no longer worries about how he looks and just lets himself BE and DO whatever the part calls for. Ironically, even though he's in his `80s, he comes off more virile and passionate now than he ever did 40 years ago. And even though the costume designer thinks all old, gay men wear ridiculous scarf-type thingies...he pulls of his free-wheelin' gay lifestyle with wonderful grace. He is making up for decades of lost time, and boy, does he give it his all, this man. Parties, clubs, boyfriends, and fun. And he finally is able to develop a close relationship with his son. He has the love in his life that he always truly craved, and doesn't have to hold back for anyone.

McGregor handles these scenes very well. He's perplexed by dad, but also moved by his stories of being in the closet and arranging secret rendezvous with other men. He's angry at what his dad put his mom through...but he's also moved by the joy his father now experiences. And he does very well in the scenes with his dad at the end nears.

But the romance scenes with Laurent don't work so well. First of all, Melanie Laurent is a glowing actress, but her English is quite hard to understand. The pillow talk between these two is almost one sided, because I could so seldom understand her whispers. Her character is also quite unbelievable. She's a successful enough actress, apparently, to be put up in a huge luxury suite at a luxury hotel...yet she has lots and lots of time to gallivant around with McGregor, never needing to be on set, apparently, and never being recognized by anyone. She is more of an "idea" from the scriptwriter than a real person. Again, Laurent is not the problem...the fact that English is not her language and the character isn't believable can't be pinned on her. And McGregor seems a bit too misty-eyed in these scenes. He's such a milquetoast! And again, the clothes he's asked to wear (striped shirts dangerously close to Marcel Marceau-land) do NOT help him. One almost wonders if he needs to come out of the closet too. (Not trying to lean on stereotypes, but the thought does occur.)

And worst of all is the character of Andy, as played by Goran Visnjic (once a regular on ER). This is Plummer's steadiest boyfriend, the lover who is there at the end. Visnjic plays him so utterly unconvincingly that I almost cringed to see him. He minces about with such unbridled fervor that it feels like a Benny Hill caricature. The script is no help to him...but he takes what he has to work with it and turns it into utter garbage. I felt sorry for the other actors having to share a sound stage with him.

Overall the film has many very nice moments. It was clearly made with love by writer/director Mike Mills (apparently semi-autobiographical). But what it needed, I think, was more of a critical, dispassionate 2nd opinion from someone not quite so close to the material. Some tightening of the script, better development of the secondary characters (including Laurent's character) and a far better costume designer could easily have turned this from a three-star, soon-to-be-forgotten film into a 4.5 star, memorable exploration of the human heart.

My enthusiasm for this gem from Mike Mills is unbounded. I loved everything about it, from knowing that it springs from Mills' own life experiences, to its casting (Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer and Mélanie Laurent -- brilliant all), to the care with which Mills crafted his work (he's clearly an artist first), to the delightful surprises he embedded within his work (suddenly turning the screen over to the colors of the rainbow flag one by one is yet one dazzlingly original touch). Always destined for the art house, it deserves a wider audience.

Best and, for me, the most memorable scene among many: a costume party in which McGregor's character, Oliver, goes as Sigmund Freud. Soon, in character, he's psychoanalyzing party guests. Suddenly, a wordless Mélanie Laurent slides on to the couch. Eyeing him, she turns the tables: "Why are you so sad?" she pens in quick note to him. He's surprised: he thought he was fooling everyone. Clearly, she's seen through it. "How did you know?" he asks. Another note: this one, simply a drawing of his sad eyes. That scene - equal parts crafty, neat humor and sorrow - is emblematic of the film. From Oliver's reaction, you know straight away that Laurent's Anna will become a very important person in his life.

And that's not even getting to the heart of the movie: the tale of Oliver's father, Hal, his coming out in his late 70s, and the evolving relationship between father and son. Hal's tale - and the tale of Mills' own father - is both heartbreaking for a life lost but, at the same time, uplifting for the spirit of grabbing what you can while there's still time left. Christopher Plummer has never been better. He looks and sounds terrific here.

I listened to an interview with Ewan McGregor after the film was released. He noted that he'd formed such a bond with 'Arthur' - his father's erstwhile Jack Russell Terrier - that he went 'looking for a replacement' after the film had ended. [He adopted a poodle mix .] That bond is clearly evident on the screen.

"Beginners" tells in chronologically fluid fashion the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a graphic artist mourning his recently deceased father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out as a gay man in his seventies after forty-four years of marriage, only to discover that he had terminal cancer soon afterward. Their relationship (somewhat puzzled, though loving, on Oliver's side) and Hal's happy embrace of his new-found, though brief, freedom is seen in flashbacks. In the present (actually 2003) Oliver is closing his father's house, adopting his Jack Russell terrier (who has as charming a screen presence as any of the human actors), and hesitantly embarking on a relationship with Anna (Mélanie Laurent), an actress as wary of emotional commitment as he is. Occasionally there are even more distant flashbacks to Oliver's childhood, where the viewer gets glimpses of his witty, unhappy mother as well.

Besides the non-linear time frame, "Beginners" employs other cinematic devices that seem intended to create distance from the heavy emotions that could be engendered by this narrative: spoken narration, whimsical samples of Oliver's work and even subtitles for a dog's imagined thoughts. Director Mike Mills is skillful enough to keep the effects from becoming too cute; in fact, he manages to draw a parallel between the viewer's enforced detachment and the characters' difficulties in acknowledging their true desires and emotions. He is helped by an excellent cast, headed by the estimable Christopher Plummer, whose presence is so compelling that it has the unfortunate side effect of making the events after his character's death seem less interesting. (Goran Visnjic of "ER" fame, looking a bit long in the tooth, has some nice scenes as Hal's lover.) Also, the course of Oliver's and Anna's bumpy romance is not particularly well-charted; one moment they're happy and moving in together, the next they are broken up. Still, Plummer's presence and the screen charisma of McGregor and Laurent lift "Beginners" and make it an engaging, and ultimately gripping experience. The DVD adds a brief, not particularly relevatory black-and-white documentary about the making of the film in addition to the usual trailers and voice-over commentaries by the director.

A sweet and touching film, "Beginners" tells the story of Oliver Fields (Ewan MacGregor), a man in his late 30s who learns that his recently widowed 75 year-old father (Christopher Plummer) has terminal cancer--and is gay. The movie focuses on Oliver's attempts to understand these revelations as he navigates a new relationship with a complicated French actress Anna (Mélanie Laurent) and an even more complicated Jack Russell terrier named Arthur, whom Oliver inherits after his father's death and who refuses to leave Oliver's side. Ultimately, this becomes a film about opportunities for love that we seize and that we squander and the myriad lingering effects of our responses to these opportunities. "Beginners" is a small film with a big heart and a profound understanding of emotions.