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Beginners (Mike Mills, 2010)
Unfortunately, much of
Beginners is concerned with another set of beginners. This greater portion
of the film charts the formative steps in the romantic entanglement of a duo of
middle-aged hipsters. This twee material infuriates to no end, freely swapping
emotional honesty with cloying artifice. When they first meet, she can’t speak
due to laryngitis and must write everything down in a notebook. They go on a
clumsy date at an outmoded roller skating rink. His job as illustrator involves
making childish doodles, only exacerbating the feel of terminal cuteness that
permeates most of Beginners. The
hand-wringing about their fear of emotional commitment feels like a constant
interruption. Director Mills tries to ground this material somewhat. He
generally uses natural lighting and often sets his scenes in clinical locations
such as hospitals and hotels. Still, this tendency is neutered by other
stylistic flourishes, such as his frequent, elaborate photo montages and
extended flashbacks to Oliver’s childhood. Perhaps it is the conception of the
Oliver character that makes Beginners
ultimately feel so disjointed, though. Because of the film’s jumbled chronology,
McGregor is stranded by a script that requires him to both be haunted by the
lies of his childhood and emotionally open to his new romantic relationship.
Oliver flits from depressed to charming and back again as the script requires,
ultimately feeling less like a character than a grand contrivance. Given that
Beginners relies upon him to form its
emotional core, he becomes a major detriment and ultimately serves as a
distraction from the highlights that surround him. 46 Jeremy Heilman 06.20.11
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The
promising, somber start of Mike Mills’ dramedy
Beginners belies the overly
precocious tone to follow. Death hangs in the air of the opening scenes here, as
middle-aged Oliver (Ewan McGregor) packs up the personal effects of his recently
deceased father, discovering a life of repressed hopes and dreams that he only
recently became aware of. From this start, though, the film extends both forward
and backward in time, to show how Oliver’s father chose to leave this world and
observe how Oliver chooses to re-enter it after an extended period of mourning.
Soon we are watching as Oliver’s septuagenarian father comes out of the closet
and begins to live his life just as he has to contend with terminal lung cancer.
This melodramatic twist makes for the film’s best material. Unlike everything
else here, it is fresh, and it is given an added boost thanks to a strong
performance from Christopher Plummer. Playing a man who no longer has to live a
life of pretense, he exudes defiant joy from the start.