Rated R for language and some sexual content
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic
Director: Mike Mills
Strength often lies in simplicity. Take happiness. At one point in "Beginners," a man tells his girlfriend shortly before they break up "I don't think this is how I'm supposed to be feeling." The words supposed to are a choke hold on the rest of the sentence. Seeking happiness can lead to its discovery. Trying to understand happiness can lead to disaster.
Melancholia is interwoven throughout the film, but charm is there, too. The main character exists in a perpetual state of understated self-pity, yet the movie itself does not. Writer/director Mike Mills ("Thumbsucker") has loosely based the premise on his own experiences. This probably explains why the film doesn't feel as heavy-handed as one might expect in this type of story.
(There may be spoilers here, but none to anyone who has seen the trailer for the movie. Still... just thought I'd bring it up.)
Most movies about people who struggle toward an emotional understanding do so from beneath the burden of a catastrophic event or some solitary emotive millstone. It's a little more complicated for struggling artist Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor). His parents were married for forty-four years. Then his mother passed away. Immediately after that, his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer) admitted to Oliver that he was gay. No fear of the response. No remorse. Just an admission. Oliver is an intelligent, decent man who harbors no judgment toward his father's personal disclosure. He never suspected it, however, assuming simply that his parents had fallen out of love long ago. This has shaped the way he views relationships, resulting in an unremitting state of loneliness. After the admission, Hal wastes no time in seeking happiness as a freshly-out-of-the-closet, proud homosexual man.
Not long after, Hal is diagnosed with stage four cancer. The story ping-pongs back and forth in time, between the months after the diagnosis and the months after Hal's death, as Oliver embarks on a new relationship with a free-spirit actress named Anna (Melanie Laurent) whom he met at a costume party. They share an amazing first night, despite her affliction with laryngitis. Oliver's cynicism threatens the potential for this relationship as well, but there may be some lessons to be learned in simply observing his father's attempt at a similar kind of contentment.
Ewan McGregor's central performance is a balancing act, portraying a man embroiled in his own pity while somehow not trying to earn our pity in the process. He doesn't learn lessons so much as grow in his perceptions of himself in others' eyes. (In one crucial encounter with his father's lover, Andy (Goran Visnjic), the lover asks pointedly, "It's because I'm gay, isn't it? The reason you haven't written or called since he died?" "No," Oliver counters softly. "It's because my father loved you so much.")
As Anna, Melanie Laurent ("Inglourious Basterds") is a perfect counterpart to Oliver's emotional weariness; she has her own demons but remains open to possibility. Christopher Plummer is a delight here; Hal is a wise man dutiful to the end, both in his commitment to his marriage and in his devotion to his own emotional fulfillment after the marriage, cancer be damned. And in a strong performance as Oliver's mother, Mary Page Keller effectively conveys an embittered woman whose resentment is pointed decidedly inward, as she knew what she was getting into and thought she could alter the unalterable.
Despite the semi-autobiographical complexion of the story, the film never feels overwrought. Director Mike Mills is all too aware of the unorthodox nature in this type of situation, and the movie at times takes subtle humorous jabs at itself while never smothering its emotional impact. There are some who may find Mills' style a little too artsy. (Hal's subtitled communicative dog may put off some viewers.) I didn't mind, as at the center rests a sublime notion... that life's truest bliss can't be understood, just accepted. That is, if we possess the courage to begin the journey. There's so much possibility at the starting gate.
* * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
Melancholia is interwoven throughout the film, but charm is there, too. The main character exists in a perpetual state of understated self-pity, yet the movie itself does not. Writer/director Mike Mills ("Thumbsucker") has loosely based the premise on his own experiences. This probably explains why the film doesn't feel as heavy-handed as one might expect in this type of story.
(There may be spoilers here, but none to anyone who has seen the trailer for the movie. Still... just thought I'd bring it up.)
Most movies about people who struggle toward an emotional understanding do so from beneath the burden of a catastrophic event or some solitary emotive millstone. It's a little more complicated for struggling artist Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor). His parents were married for forty-four years. Then his mother passed away. Immediately after that, his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer) admitted to Oliver that he was gay. No fear of the response. No remorse. Just an admission. Oliver is an intelligent, decent man who harbors no judgment toward his father's personal disclosure. He never suspected it, however, assuming simply that his parents had fallen out of love long ago. This has shaped the way he views relationships, resulting in an unremitting state of loneliness. After the admission, Hal wastes no time in seeking happiness as a freshly-out-of-the-closet, proud homosexual man.
Not long after, Hal is diagnosed with stage four cancer. The story ping-pongs back and forth in time, between the months after the diagnosis and the months after Hal's death, as Oliver embarks on a new relationship with a free-spirit actress named Anna (Melanie Laurent) whom he met at a costume party. They share an amazing first night, despite her affliction with laryngitis. Oliver's cynicism threatens the potential for this relationship as well, but there may be some lessons to be learned in simply observing his father's attempt at a similar kind of contentment.
Ewan McGregor's central performance is a balancing act, portraying a man embroiled in his own pity while somehow not trying to earn our pity in the process. He doesn't learn lessons so much as grow in his perceptions of himself in others' eyes. (In one crucial encounter with his father's lover, Andy (Goran Visnjic), the lover asks pointedly, "It's because I'm gay, isn't it? The reason you haven't written or called since he died?" "No," Oliver counters softly. "It's because my father loved you so much.")
As Anna, Melanie Laurent ("Inglourious Basterds") is a perfect counterpart to Oliver's emotional weariness; she has her own demons but remains open to possibility. Christopher Plummer is a delight here; Hal is a wise man dutiful to the end, both in his commitment to his marriage and in his devotion to his own emotional fulfillment after the marriage, cancer be damned. And in a strong performance as Oliver's mother, Mary Page Keller effectively conveys an embittered woman whose resentment is pointed decidedly inward, as she knew what she was getting into and thought she could alter the unalterable.
Despite the semi-autobiographical complexion of the story, the film never feels overwrought. Director Mike Mills is all too aware of the unorthodox nature in this type of situation, and the movie at times takes subtle humorous jabs at itself while never smothering its emotional impact. There are some who may find Mills' style a little too artsy. (Hal's subtitled communicative dog may put off some viewers.) I didn't mind, as at the center rests a sublime notion... that life's truest bliss can't be understood, just accepted. That is, if we possess the courage to begin the journey. There's so much possibility at the starting gate.
* * * 1/2 out of * * * * stars
