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.

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.

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). Interestingly, in a movie filled with characters who can't communicate on one level or another, when Oliver and Anna first meet, she has laringytis and, therefore, cannot speak. Turns out, Anna also has issues concerning her distant father. In a sweet touch, an adorable dog named Arthur serves as the emotional connection between all the characters, past and present, dead or alive, here.
Christopher Plummer's deservedly award-winning performance is a subtle but wonderful revelation. You can see the twinkle in his eyes, you can feel his joy, when he finally embraces his true self. In many ways, Oliver is just as full of child-like wonder and astonishment in his relationship with Anna as his father was when he came out of the closet. I am thrilled that Plummer received awards, but I wish Ewan McGregor's equally heartfelt performance and Mike Mills' beautiful screenplay, had also received the same recognition. But, regardless of awards, "Beginners" is a warm and human film; to be cherished.