Beginners is a well-intentioned motion picture with many charms and terrific actors. Billed as a comedy, Beginners aspires to tell an illuminating story about familial and romantic love, sacrifice, acceptance, and the meaning of happiness. It is entertaining enough, but ultimately, Beginners is a less than satisfying film, which fails to meet its lofty ambitions.
The story centers on a morose mid-30s guy named Oliver (EwanMcGregor), who, as he finds himself falling into a new love affair, looks back on his parents’ lives, their marriage, and particularly his experience of and relationship with his father Hal (Christopher Plummer), who died a few weeks earlier. Upon the death of Oliver's mother five years ago, Hal surprised Oliver with the announcement that he was gay. From then until his death, Hal was a changed person - outgoing, adventurous, free-spirited, and happy. A major theme of Beginners is Oliver's struggle to understand and to take inspiration from his father's late life blooming, as he tries to cope with his conflicted feelings about his new relationship (or situationship, as Rachel would call it).
On the plus side for this movie, all of the principal actors are pretty good. Plummer has been singled out for special recognition with an Oscar and other awards for his role as Oliver's joyful, newly liberated gay father. He was fine and a pleasure to watch, but I suspect much of the hoopla had more to do with a celebration of the 82 year old actor’s lifetime achievements than his work on this specific picture. As Hal, Plummer gives pretty much a one note performance, considering that his character discovers early on that he is living with a diagnosis of terminal cancer. We see his joie de vivre once he comes out, and his determination to live his new life to the fullest while he can. But a little more of a perceptible nod to his impending mortality would have added more poignancy and depth to the role.
Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds, The Concert) is more nuanced as Oliver's love interest, Anna, a cute French actress suffering from a dolorous melancholy and a reluctance to commitment not unlike his own. Mary PageKeller makes the most of a cameo role in Oliver's reminiscence, as his amusingly quirky mother Georgia, who loyally, stoically protects her husband's secret over 44 years of marriage. Goran Visnjic invests Hal's much younger lover, Andy, with energy, humor and a soulful sincerity. McGregor, who I always like, is believable as an attractive, but depressive guy, although his Oliver seems over-sedated, sleepwalking through most of his scenes. I know that is part of the point for his character, but still, it's a bit much.
Also on the plus side are several fun or revealing scenes, such as an early one at a costume party where Oliver (dressed as a Sigmund Freud-ish psychoanalyst) meets Anna, dressed in a mannish outfit, who lies on his analyst’s couch and then flirtatiously communicates via notepad, claiming she has lost her voice. Another nice, touching, but brief, moment comes late in the film where Oliver acknowledges his appreciation for Andy, whom he has avoided for months since Hal’s death.
And, as with The Artist (2011) there’s a great dog character, named Arthur (Cosmo - another Jack Russell terrier). Arthur communicates wittily with Oliver via subtitled thoughts. Sometimes Oliver even seems to get these messages. There is also a lovely, nostalgic, albeit anachronistic soundtrack featuring Hoagie Carmichael, Jelly Roll Morton, and Josephine Baker tunes, along with some original music.
On the other hand, the movie feels random; it never comes together. The writer/director Mike Mills conceived this project as an autobiographical work. Its virtues and flaws flow from this circumstance. His explanation of the parallels with his own experience and his scriptwriting process is illuminating. Mills is a graphic designer, and a music video director /producer as well as a feature film maker. McGregor’s character is a graphic designer working on an album cover for a music group called the Sads. He puts together a book of drawings called The History of Sadness; it helps us to see his character as a depressed person. Mills actually produced a book of drawings while working on this project, of which The History of Sadness comprises the first third. About Plummer’s character he has said:
“It’s a portrait of my real dad, when he came out. He passed away around four to five years later, and I wrote it right after he died. We had some intense, hot conversations that blossomed in so many ways; they became more engaging and started challenging my love issues, and I wasn’t done with the conversation.”* However, while Mills paints a loving, admiring picture of his Dad in the character of Hal, such intense, hot conversations are not a part of the script.
In fact, throughout the course of the movie, conversations are pretty sparse and not particularly interesting or revealing. There’s a lot of showing, but little telling. This lapse is particularly egregious with respect to the romance between Oliver and Anna. We see them doing things, like roller skating, kissing, waking up together, staring into each other’s eyes - but we get very little dialogue. One of the most irksome moments for me, in fact, was a sequence in which we see Anna and Oliver talking about stuff, but we don’t hear what they are saying; instead, we are treated to soundtrack music.
As to the point of the picture: ”It’s a story of beginners. … Hal, wasn’t someone who was dying, but someone just starting to live. When my dad came out, it was like he was a completely different person. The movie also portrays a couple — they’ve gone through a bunch, but are really just starting their relationship.” And finally, “I got so many things out of this film that I wanted to and that were also slightly out of my reach. Everything is integrated in “Beginners” — my story, my drawings — and that’s why I’m so happy.”
For me, however, that was why I was disappointed. Mills had a bunch of ideas, it seems, but couldn’t decide if he was making a light comedy, a bittersweet romance, or a memoir. The movie is a hodgepodge of tones, themes and sequences which are not well integrated, that don’t quite gel, and that feel incomplete – shallow, even. Mills has been hailed as a brilliant auteur, but in this instance, he might have done better with a little help - a cowriter, a different director, someone who could see the problems. Working solo, pulling his ideas together into a cohesive piece appears to have been slightly out of Mills' reach.
I'm not saying Beginnings is a terrible motion picture; it has its moments. A lot of critics seemd to like it. In my view, however, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
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