Review of Beginners (2011) by Sunil J — 19 Jan 2012

This was an absolutely adorable movie. It's funny, emotional, creative and completely charming. It's being marketed as a comedy, but I think it's far and away a drama -- with a few quirky scenes.

I haven't seen a film this year that has dealt with relationships so poignantly. It's probably known to most people who haven't seen it as a 'gay film', but it's not that at all.

Christopher Plummer's character happens to be gay and happens to have a relationship with a young man, but the other relationships are what this movie is about. The most important relationship in the film is between father and son.

It's an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish and the performance from Christopher Plummer is one of the year's best. He embraces the role and gives one of the best performances of his career.

"Beginners" has a quirky charm about it thanks to a wonderfully unique style of storytelling. There's a lot of visual tricks thrown into the narrative, but they don't get in the way thanks to director Mike Mills' emotional attachment to the project.

The raw emotion never gets lost, even amongst the quirkiness. The performances from McGregor and Laurent are also noteworthy, but -- aside from Plummer -- the scene stealer here is Cosmo who plays Arthur, McGregor's dog.

I'm not even kidding. This dog is absolutely precious and every scene he's in is gold. Mike Mills has a gem on his hands here with "Beginners". Films like this don't come along all that often and we need to appreciate this kind of quality filmmaking.

(A-).