2011 Films: #10

#10 Beginners

Beginners, in the context of the Mike Mills film, refers to starting anew; the thought that all of us, even at age 75, are still learning. For Mills, the piece is very autobiographical. After his mother passed away, his father came out of the closet as an elderly man and started a homosexual lifestyle. Same goes for Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who during one funny exchange, informs his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) that the kind of music he has just heard at a dance club is called "house". Hal holds the phone to his ear and takes notes on this.

Beginners actually begins after Hal has passed away. Oliver, dealing with the estate and the possessions, takes in Hal's Jack Russell terrier Arthur (played with vigor by Cosmo) and gives him a tour of the apartment. Arthur talks throughout the movie in subtitles and is often comic relief. After Oliver meets Anna (Inglorious Basterds' Melanie Laurent) and he is at a loss for words, Arthur says to him "Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something dramatic happens right now." Oliver and Anna's beginning is about as meet-cute as it can possibly get (a little much for me, but nice enough) in that she has just lost her voice, so she can only nod, smile and write messages. During the ride home, she points for him to turn right and he drives on the sidewalk. The narrative structure jumps between the present as his relationship with Anna begins to develop, and the past, which showcases the vibrant lifestyle Hal had always wanted but was too afraid to let play out. Even up to his death, he appears happier than he had ever been to his only son.

Speaking of narrative, the narration aspect of Beginners is far and away its strongest and most unique storytelling device. The film takes place in 2003, and Oliver's voice over brings us up to speed with the help of photo slides. Example: "This is what the stars look like in 2003 (a photo of the galaxy). And the President (a photo of George Bush). Here is what kissing looked like in the year 2003 (a photo of people kissing)." You get the idea. It sounds a little condescending as I'm writing it out, but the way that feels as your watching it is not that way in the least, and it hooks you in from the get-go. Mills also utilizes the effect with footage instead of pictures. "This is what it looked like when my father told me he was gay," Oliver says in voiceover as Hal, sitting on a couch in a sweater and ascot says "I'm gay."

Ewan McGregor is dynamite in the part of Oliver, a heart-on-his-sleeve type who supports, never questions, his father's strange admission. Melanie Laurent comes across a little pretentious, but maybe that's just because of the French accent, and Goran Visnjic as Hal's lover Andy is a pleasant counterpart. But this is Christopher Plummer's supporting actor statue to lose, and he'll win much in the same way that Jack Palance won for City Slickers in '91--an older gentleman who had never previously won an Oscar and was very effective in limited screen time. He's definitely fun to watch and truly does give the viewer the impression that for the first time in his life, he's having a blast being alive.