← Back to Reviews
in
Beginners is a lovely and moving comedy-drama from 2010 that tries to encompass quite a bit and actually succeeds for the most part. The film is part character study, part family drama, part documdrama, and part romantic comedy.
Ewan MacGregor plays Oliver Fields, a sad and internally damaged young man who has been severely affected by his relationship with his parents, a dysfunctional couple who had no clue what they did to their child. Oliver's mother, Georgia, was a self-hating Jew, who treated her son like an adult and his father, Hal, was a closeted homosexual who came out of the closet at age 75 and became lovers with a much younger man for three years before contracting an inoperable cancer. It is these relationships that are revealed simultaneously while Oliver is tentatively pursuing a relationship with a French actress.
Writer-director Mike Mills really scored a bullseye here, constructing a screenplay that is intricate but never difficult to follow. The story quietly opens with Oliver bringing home his dad's dog, an adorable Jack Terrier named Arthur and we watch the rest of his relationship with his parents unfold in flashback, we see him as a child with his mother and as an adult with his dad at the end of his life, providing layered documentation as to why Oliver is the way he is.
MacGregor is charming and intense as Oliver, creating a character we immediately care about and sympathize with and Melanie Laurent is an eye opener as Anna, the French actress. Mary Page Keller, an actress who has been off the radar for quite awhile, is very effective as Georgia as is Goran Visnjic as Hal's young lover, but shining above them all, in a performance that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is Christopher Plummer as Hal, the man who finally found the courage to come out of the closet 10 years after his wife's death and lived his final years with a joy that his son Oliver sometimes couldn't understand. Plummer really shines in one scene where Hal explains to Oliver why he married Georgia, even though he knew he was gay.
Despite some less-than-stellar production values, Mills' sensitive direction and a striking piano score are frosting on the cake, though Plummer's effervescent winning performance is reason enough to check out this indie sleeper alone.
Beginners is a lovely and moving comedy-drama from 2010 that tries to encompass quite a bit and actually succeeds for the most part. The film is part character study, part family drama, part documdrama, and part romantic comedy.
Ewan MacGregor plays Oliver Fields, a sad and internally damaged young man who has been severely affected by his relationship with his parents, a dysfunctional couple who had no clue what they did to their child. Oliver's mother, Georgia, was a self-hating Jew, who treated her son like an adult and his father, Hal, was a closeted homosexual who came out of the closet at age 75 and became lovers with a much younger man for three years before contracting an inoperable cancer. It is these relationships that are revealed simultaneously while Oliver is tentatively pursuing a relationship with a French actress.
Writer-director Mike Mills really scored a bullseye here, constructing a screenplay that is intricate but never difficult to follow. The story quietly opens with Oliver bringing home his dad's dog, an adorable Jack Terrier named Arthur and we watch the rest of his relationship with his parents unfold in flashback, we see him as a child with his mother and as an adult with his dad at the end of his life, providing layered documentation as to why Oliver is the way he is.
MacGregor is charming and intense as Oliver, creating a character we immediately care about and sympathize with and Melanie Laurent is an eye opener as Anna, the French actress. Mary Page Keller, an actress who has been off the radar for quite awhile, is very effective as Georgia as is Goran Visnjic as Hal's young lover, but shining above them all, in a performance that won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, is Christopher Plummer as Hal, the man who finally found the courage to come out of the closet 10 years after his wife's death and lived his final years with a joy that his son Oliver sometimes couldn't understand. Plummer really shines in one scene where Hal explains to Oliver why he married Georgia, even though he knew he was gay.
Despite some less-than-stellar production values, Mills' sensitive direction and a striking piano score are frosting on the cake, though Plummer's effervescent winning performance is reason enough to check out this indie sleeper alone.