Review of Beginners (2011) by Jens T — 29 Jan 2012

Mike Mills' Beginners is another film that we might call an author film, it's partly based on Mills own experience. And you can really feel that all event in this film is something that might or happening just right now to any kind of person. We get some pretty good performance by Ewan McGregor, Mélanie Laurent and Christopher Plummer. And there's also the Jack Russell Terrier, Cosmo as Arthur who doesn't speak, but understands two thousand words.

Beginners follows two plot lines, where we follow the journey of the illustrator Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor). One of the plots we follow the event when his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer) after the departure of his wife, openly admit that he's gay, and that he has been gay all his life. He's later diagnosed with cancer, and Oliver is by his side until his death, but the though of his father being gay all the time, still haunts him after his father death, while he looks back at memories from his childhood. The other plot line takes place in the present when he meets the vivid french actress, Anna (Mélanie Laurent) at a party, and they start a passionate love relationship where he tells her every thing, all his problems even the ones with his father.

Beginners is a good film with great performances, and specially Christopher Plummer who without a doubt gonna get an Oscar for his performance, which he truly deserves, because it's a performance with a wide specter, from being a true gay guy who hangs out with all his gay friends, to be the serious father as he use to be for Oliver. The Cosmo also does a great performance as Arthur, even though he does not talk, he has a soul. What I also liked about his movie is how three dimensional all the character are, and that you can't entirely read them and that's it's up to us to figure out why they do the things they do. Thumbs up.