by Andrew O'Hehir
I totally lost my heart to Mike Mills' "Beginners," and I don't think I want it back. A multi-talented, multimedia dude whose work includes graphic design, music videos, documentaries and now feature films (his first was "Thumbsucker" in 2005), Mills is the kind of person who would be completely irritating if he weren't both so sincere and so authentic, a nearly impossible combination in our calculating age. You might say that the same description applies to "Beginners," which is a sad, sweet, funny and ultimately unforgettable love story about a man and a woman and a father and son, and also ranks among the most affectionate and sensitive portraits of homosexuality ever crafted by a straight person.
If I tell you that "Beginners" is rooted in Mills' own story, and that after Mills' mother died a decade or so ago his father came out to him, found a much younger lover, and spent a few years as a Pride-flag-flying, book-club-joining, socially active Los Angeles gay senior before his own death, that leads you toward one understanding of what kind of movie it is. Christopher Plummer plays the dad, Hal, in a generous and heartbreaking performance that I hope will not be forgotten come Oscar time, and Ewan McGregor plays the autobiographical protagonist, a depressed and lonely graphic designer named Oliver. I have no idea how the public perceives McGregor at this point, and he's certainly not the red-hot leading man he once was. But I can't be alone in thinking he's getting better and better all the time. He seeks out understated roles in mid-size quality films ("I Love You Phillip Morris," "The Ghost Writer," now this), and he has that mysterious Dean-Brando-Pacino ability to take a moment when nothing is officially happening and make it urgent and powerful.
But that description also might make it sound as if "Beginners" were a sweet, slight personal story, with a possibly tedious political agenda, and doesn't convey anything about how subtle and beautifully crafted it is. Drawing on his experience as a designer and his knowledge of film history, Mills has created a complex work of collage and montage, with a mixed-up chronology that breathes naturally and never feels arty or artificial. Indeed, while "Beginners" isn't one-fifth as showy or as labored as Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" -- the standard of comparison for all self-reflective family films at the moment -- it actually considers many of the same questions about mortality and loss and memory and parenthood, and employs a similar narrative strategy (minus the dinosaurs and the direct address to supernatural entities). Mills' direction and Kaspar Tuxen's natural-light camerawork feel lo-fi and naturalistic, but from its first moments "Beginners" is an ingenious construction that tells several stories at once.
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I totally lost my heart to Mike Mills' "Beginners," and I don't think I want it back. A multi-talented, multimedia dude whose work includes graphic design, music videos, documentaries and now feature films (his first was "Thumbsucker" in 2005), Mills is the kind of person who would be completely irritating if he weren't both so sincere and so authentic, a nearly impossible combination in our calculating age. You might say that the same description applies to "Beginners," which is a sad, sweet, funny and ultimately unforgettable love story about a man and a woman and a father and son, and also ranks among the most affectionate and sensitive portraits of homosexuality ever crafted by a straight person.
If I tell you that "Beginners" is rooted in Mills' own story, and that after Mills' mother died a decade or so ago his father came out to him, found a much younger lover, and spent a few years as a Pride-flag-flying, book-club-joining, socially active Los Angeles gay senior before his own death, that leads you toward one understanding of what kind of movie it is. Christopher Plummer plays the dad, Hal, in a generous and heartbreaking performance that I hope will not be forgotten come Oscar time, and Ewan McGregor plays the autobiographical protagonist, a depressed and lonely graphic designer named Oliver. I have no idea how the public perceives McGregor at this point, and he's certainly not the red-hot leading man he once was. But I can't be alone in thinking he's getting better and better all the time. He seeks out understated roles in mid-size quality films ("I Love You Phillip Morris," "The Ghost Writer," now this), and he has that mysterious Dean-Brando-Pacino ability to take a moment when nothing is officially happening and make it urgent and powerful. But that description also might make it sound as if "Beginners" were a sweet, slight personal story, with a possibly tedious political agenda, and doesn't convey anything about how subtle and beautifully crafted it is. Drawing on his experience as a designer and his knowledge of film history, Mills has created a complex work of collage and montage, with a mixed-up chronology that breathes naturally and never feels arty or artificial. Indeed, while "Beginners" isn't one-fifth as showy or as labored as Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" -- the standard of comparison for all self-reflective family films at the moment -- it actually considers many of the same questions about mortality and loss and memory and parenthood, and employs a similar narrative strategy (minus the dinosaurs and the direct address to supernatural entities). Mills' direction and Kaspar Tuxen's natural-light camerawork feel lo-fi and naturalistic, but from its first moments "Beginners" is an ingenious construction that tells several stories at once.
Read more:
image credit:
