(2008 HOLIDAY TEAM)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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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