{"id":17407,"date":"2012-02-01T09:30:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T17:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17407"},"modified":"2012-02-01T13:50:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T21:50:37","slug":"beginners-mike-mills-2011-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17407","title":{"rendered":"Beginners (Mike Mills, 2011): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jan Mclaughlin<\/a>. Viewed at Santa Barbara film festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mike Mills wrote and directed\u00a0\u00a0 Beginners<\/em>, An emotionally charged yet humors\u00a0 drama. Oliver (Ewan McGregor from\u00a0Trainspotting 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\u00a0recently widowed at 75 and\u00a0comes 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.<\/p>\n

Oliver depressed over his fathers death is dragged by co-workers\u00a0to a costume party dressed as Sigmund Freud where he analyzes and falls in love with a french actress Anna\u00a0(Melanie Laurent\u00a0from Inglorious Bastards). Anna is unable to talk (laryngitis), a perfect beginning to a relationship where introspection and psychoanalysis play a major role.\u00a0Oliver draws on memories with his life embracing father to negotiate his romantic ups and downs with the risk taking rootless actress. Beginners<\/em> does an excellent job with both the romance and the relationship between Oliver and Hal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Beginners <\/em>jumps chronology and unfolds through flashbacks\u00a0of\u00a0Olivers 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\u00a0where 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\u00a0homophobic 1950’s film clips that show America at a conservative\u00a0less permissive time and\u00a0cleverly done are the close ups of Olivers doodles at work as a graphic artist that help bring the story along.<\/p>\n

Christopher Plummer shines as social\u00a0Hal who is catching up on life and\u00a0living\u00a0it to\u00a0to the fullest, he’s\u00a0throwing parties, he joins\u00a0the local gay choir and activist rights groups and is\u00a0getting a cash course in house music. Ewan Mcgregor\u00a0is flawless\u00a0as the\u00a0likable and dutiful son who learns that life can be funny at serious moments.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 Museum of Art. Plummer has won a Golden Globe as Best\u00a0Supporting Actor and is up for Best Supporting Actor for an Academy Award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jan Mclaughlin. Viewed at Santa Barbara film festival. Mike Mills wrote and directed\u00a0\u00a0 Beginners, An emotionally charged yet humors\u00a0 drama. Oliver (Ewan McGregor from\u00a0Trainspotting 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\u00a0recently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1964,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1964"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}