Review of Beginners (2011) by Kenneth L — 27 Feb 2012

This is a fine little indie film with an emotionally involving story to tell. It deals with its subject matter of love and pain in an honest, understated way that I appreciated.

The story, which moves back and forth in time quite freely, follows the emotionally unavailable Oliver (Ewan McGregor), whose 75-year-old father Hal (Christopher Plummer, who won an Oscar for the role last night) came out as gay after his wife died. The movie alternates between showing the last few years of Hal's life, and the beginnings of Oliver's relationship with a French actress (Melanie Laurent) who appears out of nowhere and throws herself at him (the lucky bastard). (The movie is called "Beginners" because Hal is just getting his start at gay relationships and Oliver is just getting his start at love at all, you see.).

The movie is consistently played at a low key, but the acting is still quite strong. Ewan McGregor is good at being really sad the entire movie. Christopher Plummer got by far the juicier part, as the old man who decides to try to live his gayness to the fullest even though he's old and has been diagnosed with cancer. Plummer invests him with an air of dignity that he maintains even while at a gay club. It's the combination of old-fashioned reserve and enthusiasm about his newfound life that won Plummer the Oscar. Melanie Laurent (from Inglourious Basterds) is fine as the love interest, though the movie doesn't develop her much outside of her relationship with McGregor's character. There's a Jack Russell terrier who's almost (but not quite) as cute and indispensable as the one in The Artist.

The movie is occasionally narrated in this somewhat twee, self-conscious way by McGregor's character, which doesn't totally fit. I have no problem with twee self-consciousness per se (I do like Jonathan Safran Foer, after all), but it doesn't come up here often enough to be really integral to the fabric of the movie, while coming up often enough to be mildly annoying. Still, that's a very minor complaint. For the most part, this movie, written and directed by Mike Mills, is sad, funny on occasion, naturalistic, and honest.