When it comes to living life, we’re all just Beginners

Ewan McGregor stars as Oliver, a 38-year-old with serious relationship issues … like he can’t sustain one for a long period of time. When Oliver meets Anna at a Halloween party, they immediately hit it off but Oliver’s past begins to haunt him, threatening to derail his happiness. The source of Oliver’s problems are clearly traced back to his parents; a relationship that young Oliver always sensed just didn’t work. After Oliver’s mother dies, his father Hal reveals that he’s been harboring a lifelong secret — he’s gay, and at 75 he plans to live his life to the fullest.

Beginners is one of those movies that isn’t very easily pigeon-holed. Is it the story of Oliver’s failures at holding on to relationships? Is it a father and son story? Or a mother and son story? It’s definitely Oliver’s story, though, but it has many levels of interpretation. Through the film’s very non-linear storytelling, I perceive the entire movie to be a series of flashbacks, or more like Oliver’s memories as we do hear him in voice over from time to time telling us what it was like in 2003 or the 1950s or even during the gay pride movement of the 70s. It’s hard to say that when we first meet Oliver if the year we’re starting at is the film’s present or if that is just the foundation of Oliver’s story. I choose to just see it as a memory since it’s not taking place in our present day.

The fractured structure of the storytelling may put off some viewers (if they haven’t already been put off by the gay angle — and if you’re planning to see this movie you really should be prepared to see Christopher Plummer kissing Goran Visnjic), but it didn’t lose me at all. In fact, I rather enjoyed the early memories of Oliver’s childhood with his “free spirit” mother. That relationship would make a great movie itself. Mary Page Keller was fantastic as Georgia, a woman who manages to get thrown out of museums for “interacting” with the art and then telling people that Oliver’s appendix has burst … while he’s standing right next to her. I also would have liked to have seen more of the father/son relationship, more of Oliver’s dealing with his father’s coming out and more of Hal’s own journey as a senior citizen finally able to enjoy his life, and then finding out it’s all about to be cut short after a cancer diagnosis. Christopher Plummer is wonderful as Hal, and I would be surprised if he didn’t get some recognition come awards season.

Most of the film, however, is devoted to Oliver’s own failures in dealing not only with his personal life, but with people in general — his friends, his clients, his father’s lover. We know that watching his parents’ lack of warmth for each other has certainly left an impression on him, but we’re not sure why he’s become so totally insular even with his friends (one would assume he’s still dealing with the death of his father two months before we first meet him). Luckily, Mélanie Laurent makes an engaging and endearing Anna, and even with her own father issues you root for her and Oliver to make a go of it (even Oliver’s dog hopes the two will find love as we learn through some amusing subtitles).

The movie has some very funny moments, but even with the laughs there is still an overwhelming sense of melancholy. It’s certainly not the “feel good movie of the summer” but it does offer some hope for Oliver. I think director Mike Mills did a terrific job of bringing his own story to the screen, and I think the style — which I said may have been too arty for its own good — actually serves the story and the structure that he was going for. I like that the film doesn’t present life as all sunshine and rainbows, and that relationships can be messy and need work to survive, and that what happens to Oliver and Anna is left strictly for the viewer to decide. It’s a slice of life, or at least one person’s life, and how people looking for escapist fare in the middle of the summer movie season will accept it remains to be seen. But if you’re in the market for a movie for adults (absolutely nothing blows up except a few fireworks), something that will make you think and maybe even reflect on your own life, then you should definitely seek this one out.

Beginners is rated R for language and some sexual content.

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Jun 24, 2011 @ 00:01 EST5EDT