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 If
you’ve ever been possessed by the urge to see the award-winning veteran
actor Christopher Plummer boogie down to techno music in a gay bar,
you’re in luck. Only a film as charmingly quirky as Beginners
could have the cheeky audacity to stage such a scene with the
octogenarian Plummer grooving along to the beat in his local meat
market. Mike Mills’ story of a father and son and the changes caused by
the older man’s late-in-life revelations is crafted with sweetness and
originality.
Oliver {Ewan McGregor} has been side-swiped with a bunch of awful
truths lately; his mother’s recent passing has unleashed a new man, or
rather released a long-suppressed one. Hal {Christopher Plummer},
Oliver’s dad, is gay and always has been. Like many other homosexual
men, he chose the path of least resistance and married a woman, began a
family and put part of himself away in respect for his vows. Unnerved
but accepting of Hal and his new lifestyle and friends, Oliver is then
dealt another shock; that his father is dying. Oliver can only stand by
and be supportive as Hal manoeuvres through this new way of life,
including the disappointment of being the old man in the gay bar and
having a one-sided open relationship, and helps Hal to hide his illness
from his young lover. For the time he has left, Hal lives it with gusto
while Oliver is in stasis. It’s only after Hal’s death and a long
period of mourning that Oliver meets Anna {Mélanie
Laurent
}, whose free-spirit both delights and rattles him at a time when he is
looking for a stable foundation. Can Oliver learn to live in the moment
and put the past in its place to embrace a new future?
Beginners’ greatest gift is its tremendous charm that just skirts the
edges of being precious or schmaltzy. Whimsically creative visuals,
like Oliver’s expositional drawings and the psychic commentary from
Hal’s Jack Russell, Arthur {played by an unrepentant scene-stealer
named Cosmo} make the film a delight. When Oliver and Anna first
meet, she is stricken with laryngitis and writes her observations about
her new friend down on a pad, using her eyes to relate her interest in
Oliver and the exercise is Chaplinesque in its sweetness. Beginners
handles its subject matter with heart and honesty but keeps a light,
breezy tone even as we share Oliver’s realisation that his family was
never quite what he thought it was and witness his overwhelmed
acceptance of Hal’s new life. While played for laughs to some extent (Get
down, Christopher Plummer!), Hal’s wading into the dating pool and
the sad facts of life for a gay man on the wrong side of sixty are dealt
with respectfully. Oliver wants to support his father, but even for the
mild-mannered artist there’s a feeling of betrayal in the air that
Oliver never really knew his dad at all. To the film’s benefit or
detriment, that aspect is not explored in depth. As in life, sometimes
dramas present themselves with no bad guys, no one to blame and so it is
with Beginners, where everyone is just trying to live their lives the
best ways they can. It’s just taking Oliver a bit longer to find his
way, but with Anna’s warmth and his father’s fearless example, Beginners
shows that maybe the path to love isn’t measured by other people’s
expectations or how much time it takes to get there.
And I
demand an Arthur spinoff!
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
June 3rd,
2011
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