Film Diary 2011: Beginners (From The Argus)

Film Diary 2011: Beginners

11:43am Friday 29th July 2011 in Blogs By Owain Paciuszko - Seat 13

Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in Beginners

Ewan McGregor plays Oliver, when we meet him at the beginning of Mike Mill's gently quirky follow-up to the gently quirky Thumbsucker it's 2003, he's single and has recently lost his father (Christopher Plummer) to cancer. His father, Hal, had spent the last few years of his life having finally come out as gay after the death of his wife, also from cancer. As Oliver tries to move on, looking after his father's adorable Jack Russell Arthur, he meets Anna (Mélanie Laurent) and the two begin to fall in love.

Despite the aforementioned deaths that hover over Oliver like a gloomy cloud, it's quite strange to note that for a rather long time nothing bad seems to really happen to anyone during the start of Beginners, in fact, the film is almost entirely devoid of any conflict, which is not a negative criticism but more an indication of the kind of careful and honest pacing of this bittersweet film.

Oliver is surrounded by nice friends who are supportive of him, the dog Arthur - often subtitled - manages to steal scenes through a brilliantly subtle performance (for a dog), and he meets Anna who has some issues but only as much as Oliver does. When problems do arise they're resolved without the cloying kind of histrionics that would litter a standard rom-com, and the quirks - Mills use of stock-footage to differentiate eras via Oliver's voiceover - is more a representation of how any of us would simply, succinctly visualise the idiosyncracies of an era.

McGregor and Laurent make a nice pairing, intimate and joyful, whilst occasionally fractured by their own neuroses, that makes it all the more frustrating when they seem to teeter on the verge of breaking apart. Instead of the Julia Roberts threat of the 'obviously bad hunky guy who she's going to marry' getting in the way, it's far more effective that it is their own past and their own foibles that seem to be dooming them to not allow themselves to be happy.

Oliver as well, though never unsupportive of his father, seems to find it difficult to accept the great swell of happiness that comes into Hal's life once he finally comes out and doesn't have to hide his feelings any more. Christopher Plummer, one of the most consistently brilliant and - in many ways - overlooked screen actors, is an absolute joy in his role and it would be a real shame if his work here doesn't earn him at least some nominations come awards season next year.

The film skips back and forth through time, from Oliver's childhood memories that are spent largely in the company of his mother Georgia (Mary Page Keller), via his father coming out and gradually realising the extent of his illness, to his relationship with Anna. It's a film pieced together in much the same way as recollections of your own life would be, moving off on tangents here and there and the use of McGregor's narration serves to further draw the audience in to how he deals - and doesn't deal - with situations, often talking over scenes where characters are confessing things to one another or having an emotional exchange.

Beginners is an enjoyable, pleasant and well acted film and worth watching just for the performance of Plummer (and the dog Arthur), though the rest of the cast are also on very fine form.

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