Beginners (Mike Mills, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Jan Mclaughlin. Viewed at Santa Barbara film festival.

Mike Mills wrote and directed   Beginners, An emotionally charged yet humors  drama. Oliver (Ewan McGregor from Trainspotting and Moulon Rouge) is a L.A. graphic artist who navigates a mine field when his father Hal seamlessly played by Christopher Plummer (Sound of Music’s Captain Vonn Trapp) is recently widowed at 75 and comes out of the closet. Hal takes a much younger boyfriend (Goran Visnjic) and is celebrating and energized by his new gay life only to die of cancer five years later.

Oliver depressed over his fathers death is dragged by co-workers to a costume party dressed as Sigmund Freud where he analyzes and falls in love with a french actress Anna (Melanie Laurent from Inglorious Bastards). Anna is unable to talk (laryngitis), a perfect beginning to a relationship where introspection and psychoanalysis play a major role. Oliver draws on memories with his life embracing father to negotiate his romantic ups and downs with the risk taking rootless actress. Beginners does an excellent job with both the romance and the relationship between Oliver and Hal.

 Beginners jumps chronology and unfolds through flashbacks of Olivers childhood with his quirky mother ( Hals wife of 47 years), letting him drive “just to the end of the driveway” at the age of ten and her antics in the conservative art museum where Hal is the Director. There are tear jerking shots of Oliver cleaning out his dead fathers belongings and flushing his old medication. Effective are the homophobic 1950’s film clips that show America at a conservative less permissive time and cleverly done are the close ups of Olivers doodles at work as a graphic artist that help bring the story along.

Christopher Plummer shines as social Hal who is catching up on life and living it to to the fullest, he’s throwing parties, he joins the local gay choir and activist rights groups and is getting a cash course in house music. Ewan Mcgregor is flawless as the likable and dutiful son who learns that life can be funny at serious moments.

For anyone who has cared for and lost a parent or grandparent Beginners will hit home. Mike Meyers grew up in Santa Barbara where his father was director of Santa Barbara  Museum of Art. Plummer has won a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor and is up for Best Supporting Actor for an Academy Award.

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Published:
02.01.12 / 9am
Category:
Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2012