At it's best, Beginners is a film about misfiring synapses. How our memories don't flow in a straight line, and how things get jumbled up and messy. It's also a little too humorless for it's own good. The story is essentially that of director Mike Mills. Oliver (Ewan McGregger) is a graphic designer. In the first of several timelines, Oliver's mother has just died and his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) comes out as gay. Hal start over again as a gay man at 75. A brave and difficult thing to attempt if ever there was one. His son however is a different story.
In a further off timeline Hal is dead of lung cancer and Oliver has to deal with it. He's as closed off and private as his father was when he was in the closet. Oliver doesn't do well with women and is afraid to even try. Being morose is better for the art than it is for the artist. But he finds some company in an equally distant French actress played in a charming enough performance by Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds).
Their romance want's to be the backbone of the film, but it's just not as interesting as Hal's story which is positive and life affirming beyond it's LGBT dimensions. It's nice to think that a person can make such a radical life change so late in life and be successful. The film spends much time on Oliver trying to deal with Hal's coming out and death, but Oliver is too vague of a character, painted with slightly too broad of a brush to be of equal interest. His musings on life are amusing and mostly insightful, but they just don't add up to much. Laurent's character is even more problematic. She's not a real person as much as she's an archetypal abstraction of a woman. A lonely screenwriters projection.
What makes up for most of this is the style. The film floats back and forth between Oliver's various memories from four different points in his life. but it's not a mental workout figuring out where you are. The film drifts to whenever it feels it needs to-just the way that memory does. One of the films pleasures is how director Mills illustrates Olivers thoughts for us. When his father is told that he has a tumor the size of a quarter, Mills shows us a quarter against black. Then he shows us all the different combinations of coins that add up to 25 cents. It's always interesting how we think of such mundane things when we get bad news.
Hal's character aside, little of this story feels new but that's appropriate. People have been living variations of stories like this since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. Oliver likes to list what the Sun looked like in 1955 and 2003. What the stars looked like and the cars and the president. Beginners is what the mid-age, auto-biographical, emotionally adrift film looks like in 2011.
Grade: B-
In a further off timeline Hal is dead of lung cancer and Oliver has to deal with it. He's as closed off and private as his father was when he was in the closet. Oliver doesn't do well with women and is afraid to even try. Being morose is better for the art than it is for the artist. But he finds some company in an equally distant French actress played in a charming enough performance by Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds).
Their romance want's to be the backbone of the film, but it's just not as interesting as Hal's story which is positive and life affirming beyond it's LGBT dimensions. It's nice to think that a person can make such a radical life change so late in life and be successful. The film spends much time on Oliver trying to deal with Hal's coming out and death, but Oliver is too vague of a character, painted with slightly too broad of a brush to be of equal interest. His musings on life are amusing and mostly insightful, but they just don't add up to much. Laurent's character is even more problematic. She's not a real person as much as she's an archetypal abstraction of a woman. A lonely screenwriters projection.
What makes up for most of this is the style. The film floats back and forth between Oliver's various memories from four different points in his life. but it's not a mental workout figuring out where you are. The film drifts to whenever it feels it needs to-just the way that memory does. One of the films pleasures is how director Mills illustrates Olivers thoughts for us. When his father is told that he has a tumor the size of a quarter, Mills shows us a quarter against black. Then he shows us all the different combinations of coins that add up to 25 cents. It's always interesting how we think of such mundane things when we get bad news.
Hal's character aside, little of this story feels new but that's appropriate. People have been living variations of stories like this since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. Oliver likes to list what the Sun looked like in 1955 and 2003. What the stars looked like and the cars and the president. Beginners is what the mid-age, auto-biographical, emotionally adrift film looks like in 2011.
Grade: B-
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