Review: Beginners

According to the laws of coherent filmmaking, Beginners shouldn't work at all. The movie combines disparate elements unlikely to work together -- two love stories, a coming-out comedy, a withering statement about bigotry, a tragic death, a commentary about art versus commerce and even an oh-so-cute dog. And while juggling all these moving parts, the story constantly jumps from now to then and here to there and back again, taking us from modern-day Los Angeles to 1930s Germany to a half-dozen worlds in between.

But Beginners works well, smashingly well, so well that it's among my favorite films of this year. Much of the credit goes to Christopher Plummer, who blesses Beginners with one of the finest performances of his career.

Beginners is told from the point of view of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a young artist whose father, Hal (Plummer), has recently died of cancer. When Oliver's mother,Georgia (Mary Page Keller) died a few years earlier, Hal announced he was gay, having been not quite totally closeted through more than 40 years of marriage. In funny and sympathetic flashbacks, we see that Hal's coming out was both awkward and profoundly liberating. Freed from the bonds of a pointless marriage and in a new relationship with a much younger man, Andy (Goran Visnjic), Hal never was happier.

If only Oliver were so happy. He's lonely, disaffected and bored with his job as a commercial artist; he longs to create innovative art, but his clients want little more than portraits. Still reeling from his father's long illness and death, Oliver meets free-spirited actress Anna (Mélanie Laurent), who quickly becomes the latest in a long series of Oliver's girlfriends. Like most everything in Oliver's life, the relationship is complicated; between his aversion to long-term commitment and Anna's vagabond actor's life, the romance is passionate but always tentative.

Balancing all this heaviness are the hilariously honest thoughts of Arthur, Hal's scruffy but irresistible Jack Russell terrier, who is now Oliver's roommate and confidant. "While I understand up to 150 words -- I don't talk," Arthur tells us via subtitles early in the film. No matter -- Arthur's silent, subtitled candor is great comic relief and food for thought.

Beginners essentially is the story of three relationships: Oliver and Anna's reluctant romance, Hal and Georgia's marriage of convenience (hinted at more than fully explored, but we get the bitter picture), and Hal's joyous post-coming out relationship with Andy. The present and past are skillfully interwoven throughout the movie via seamless flashbacks and captivating montages, giving us a sense that while Oliver wasn't close to Hal in the past, he's in many ways his father's son. Just as the deeply troubled Hal distanced himself from his family, Oliver distances himself from his girlfriends. And as Hal approached life as an openly gay man with fearless honesty, Oliver learned from his father's transformation -- a transformation that continued unabated even in the face of death -- and brings Anna into his life with similar (if far less flamboyant) fearlessness.

Beyond being a study of relationships, Beginners is a powerful and poignant rebellion against hate and bigotry in all their forms, from homophobia to anti-Semitism. It also reminds us that bigotry and hypocrisy are constant bedfellows. Hal proudly fought in World War II, helping to end Hitler's genocide. But of course, the U.S. Army that liberated Jews from concentration camps would not have allowed Hal to serve if he had been openly gay. After the war, he returned to an America proud of its victory over fascism, but completely hostile toward homosexuals.

Again, wrapping a multilayered message movie around sweeping stories of romance and death (and then there is that sarcastic dog) could result in a cinematic mess. But Beginners ties everything together effortlessly, gliding between scenes and themes with nary a jarring edit or confusing transition. It's quirky without being relying on its quirkiness and poignant without being cloying. And although the mood is often quiet, somber and reflective, writer/director Mike Mills manages to keep everything moving deceptively quickly. To Mills's credit, Beginners feels like a much faster-paced film than it actually is.

It is a testament to Plummer's acting skills that, despite having less screen time than the other leads, he all but owns the film. Hal is the sort of complex, take-no-prisoners role actors live for, and Plummer inhabits Hal as if he's been waiting his entire life to play such a character. (Captain Von Trapp may be iconic, but he didn't get to passionately kiss another man or have his hair moussed on his deathbed.) Plummer is unfailingly believable in all of Hal's moods and mental states, from jubilant partying to severe dementia. Even while facing death, he begs us to celebrate life.

The rest of the cast is strong, if less memorable. McGregor's Oliver is much like his other roles, a stoic, conflicted person trying to make sense of a conflicted world, as we all do. In McGregor's capable hands, Oliver's transition from self-imposed loneliness to vulnerable romanticism is very convincing.

Unfortunately, Anna is mostly underwritten. (Why is this so often the case with female characters?) Laurent (a French actress best known to American audiences as Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds) does her best with the role, but it often borders on ornamental; instead of taking the lead, she mostly reacts to Oliver's words and actions. Anna's back story ties nicely into the film's family dysfunction and anti-bigotry themes, but more of this background is needed to make her a fully realized character.

But this is my only real complaint about Beginners. In a word, it's terrific. It's a brave, tragicomic blend of relevance and romance, a timeless take on relationships and a timely plea for tolerance, as gays and lesbians continue their struggle for acceptance and equality.