Beginners Review

This is one of my favorite films in years. Mike Mill’s Beginners is like a metaphorical cup of hot coco when you’re feeling cold. It’s a modern day fairy tale meant to uplift the audience, instilling a sense of faith meant to encourage us not to give up on finding love; first though, it wants us to be happy with who we are.

*Major Spoilers Throughout*

Only six months after the passing of his mother, Oliver’s (McGregor) father, Hal (Plumber), comes out of the closet. Hal and his wife had an arrangement to keep his homosexuality to themselves but now with her passing, he’s decided to embrace his true nature and give love another shot; Oliver, obviously stunned by this revelation, is left baffled with his mother for having endured a 38-year relationship simply for her sons piece of mind. Now, Hal may be old, but he’s not too old to poignantly set an example for his son that it’s never too late in life to have a fresh beginning.

Oliver’s an artist, a successful one at that too but lately he’s been lost, his art reflecting that confusion. He’s never had a solid relationship, like a fisherman’s bait getting bites only to be released soon after. Learning from his father, who for a majority of the film we see suffering from cancer, opens up and takes a chance.

In a fun twist, the film is presented to us in a series of flashbacks. We see Hal come out, go to clubs, befriend a supportive group of gay companions, fall in love with a handsome but curiously young man and eventually pass away with his loving son at his side. Oliver’s father may be gone now, but a lasting imprint of the latter ordeals stays with him to work through when he eventually meets Anna.

Oliver’s friends know he in a rut, forcing him to attend a Halloween party with them. He goes as Sigmund Freud and shortly after arriving, he finds a female patient with laryngitis which he must jokingly diagnose in the midst of the party. She, Anna (Laurent) can’t speak at the moment, so she writes down cut and dry responses on a notepad, a clever and charming scene which makes us all wish meeting someone cool was that easy.

This isn’t a film about sex, or graphic nudity or raw perversions. It’s not a film meant to titillate or distract you with raunchy dialogue. It’s a film meant to enchant you. The film is shot playfully and sensually, emotionally sound in the lingering pacing of it’s editing, embodying that sense of relaxation your counterpart in someone else emboldens. Anna breaks downs Oliver’s walls only because he’s ready, and he’s ready only because his father had true closure.

This film is much like one of the film’s most endearing characters, Arthur, a jack-russel terrier who speaks to his human cohorts the way an observer of human nature would, in short snippets of logical and rational messages. He states plainly when the equilibrium of his surrounding admirers is off, channeling the audience’s current perception of what’s on screen. Mike Mills does the same with his film, simply bestowing upon his audience’s a sense of happiness.