![\"\"](\"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Beginners-pic.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA film about the \u00a0new formed bond in the relationship between a dying father and his son, after a big revelation, Beginners<\/em> is a film that deals with the theme of \u00a0homosexuality (the big secret) -and the effects of its repression on a family- in a positive, non-stereotypical way. Written and directed by Mike Mills (whose previous directorial effort, Thumbsucker<\/em> was critically acclaimed) and loosely based on his own experiences, Beginners <\/em>is one of those films where the performances can make it or break it. Academy Award nominee Christopher Plummer plays Hal Fields, while Ewan McGregor plays his son Oliver whose believable performances make this a unique film.<\/p>\n Seeing it at a theatre full of people anxious to see the Plummer\u2019s excellent performance, hours prior to the Modern Master Award reception at the Arlington, added to the experience, as a nomination from the Academy, oftentimes, helps movies like this one reach a larger audience that may not have heard of it. The film is told from Oliver Fields\u2019 point of view, as he is dealing with his own personal relationship problems in the form of a new girlfriend and his inability to maintain a relationship, while at the same time dealing with this new version of his father. The new bond they form seems to be helping his own problems, as, like his father, Oliver has lived his own version of an unhappy life in unhappy relationships.\u00a0 Now Oliver is seeing his father, the happiest he\u2019s ever been, having come out of the closet after his wife\u2019s death.<\/p>\n The movie makes an interesting juxtaposition between the \u201cillness\u201d of being gay, which is deadly and has cursed Hal with happiness, and his other pest of an illness, namely, terminal cancer, which Hal cleverly downplays.\u00a0 He is supposed to be crippled and paralyzed by each \u201cillness\u201d, and somehow you get the feeling in the movie that the \u201cgayness disease\u201d is far more deadly and terrifying than the Stage 4 cancer Hal refuses to succumb to.\u00a0 It is almost as if the \u201cdisease\u201d of gayness, provides the necessary happiness to outlive cancer yet another day.<\/p>\n The main attraction of this movie is both of the leads performances, McGregor has shown a knack for playing the na\u00efve\/shy American that most people can relate to, while Plummer gets to play against time with his \u201ccool dad\u201d persona now that he\u2019s living the life he always wanted, dating a much younger man and becoming a party man.<\/p>\n The change that goes between both characters, from McGregor\u2019s recollections of his father, forming a new relationship with him and his new girlfriend, coping with the knowledge that his father is dying and the bond that they form is one of the strongest parts of the film, as it is both believable and dramatic. Seeing the pain in Oliver\u2019s eyes as his father is dying, is what makes this movie extra special.<\/p>\n Beginners<\/em> is one of my favorite movies featured this year at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival; to have Plummer\u2019s performance nominated is one of the only good things that the Academy has done right this year. Hopefully Beginners<\/em> will come back to theatres, to be watched the way it was intended to, since this is a movie that can be liked by almost anybody, and those who don\u2019t agree with the subject matter may also be able to learn from it, accept it and hopefully be more understanding, after all, this is a movie about family, relationships, and issues, and who doesn\u2019t have one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Kris Mendes at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival A film about the \u00a0new formed bond in the relationship between a dying father and his son, after a big revelation, Beginners is a film that deals with the theme of \u00a0homosexuality (the big secret) -and the effects of its repression on a family- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1972,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20849","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\/20849","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\/1972"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}