Love, love, love, love, love. Yes, we get it! This timeless, seemingly enigmatic concept that has permeated every nook and cranny of human culture since the days of the Neolithic Revolution, continues to leave its hackneyed mark on the modern world of today. However, in the field of independent films, Beginners (2011), a new comedy-drama by director Mike Mills, explores our favorite L-word, as well as the issues of vulnerability and self-doubt, liminality, and loneliness, in its own unique way.
The story follows the life of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a doleful graphic designer who makes an attempt at forming a serious relationship with Anna (Melanie Laurent), a quirky, itinerant actress, after recently coming to terms with two shocking revelations: the first being that his 75-year old father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), has come out of the closet and taken a younger lover, Andy (Goran Visnjic), and the second being that his father has been diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Frequently skipping about through time, the movie begins with Oliver cleaning out his recently-deceased father's bungalow, emptying out his pills, consolidating his personal belongings, and taking his Jack Russell terrier home with him....a poignant moment for anyone who has ever gone through the grieving process themselves.
However, the film, while filled with lugubrious moments (such as the one above), it not entirely morose. It is also whimsical and funny, and for starters, the humorous moments in which Arthur, the cute little pooch who is taken everywhere, coddled, kissed, and loved by everyone, telepathically communicates with Oliver (through subtitles) will warmly amuse many viewers-- not to mention pet/animal lovers. There is also a scene in which two characters roller-skate through a hotel lobby, reminiscent of the lightheartedness of a Charlie Chaplin film. By that same token, the film benefits from extraordinarily sharp writing. During one scene in which Anna and Oliver look out from their hotel room to another building across from them, Anna remarks, "Half the people live with the feeling of not knowing whether or not things will turn out for them. The other half relies on magic." Similarly, there is a flashback scene in which Oliver's mother (Mary Page Keller) explains what therapeutic catharsis is to her son, whom she whittles the day away with by playing games and attending art museums, and then tells him to go into his room and scream as loud as he can to demonstrate the latter. When he opens the door and reveals to her that he doesn't feel like screaming, she facetiously answers, "You will." Short, simple, and penetrating, acutely honest observations like these that give the movie its flair.
What's also particularly effective and intriguing are the many instances in the movie in which barrages of still photos, accompanied by Ewan McGregor's forthright, expository narration, flash up on the screen. Displaying everything from presidential portraits to vintage, pop art-style advertising and telescopic images of space, these montages compare the frivolous, yet at the same time significant, cultural details and relics of the modern day (2003) with the recent past (1950s). A creative, authentic and surprisingly useful tactic for this story, Mills seems to be impressing upon us viewers the redolent message that, despite what occurs around us in the external world, certain facets of human experience don't change, and one of those facets is our relationships with other people (or in the case of this movie, people and pets).
The film is not perfect, and may strike many as being too quiet, too quirky, or too sentimental. However, for what it's worth, it is as pleasantly original, movingly entertaining, and sweet as independent films about love are going to get. I guess you could call it "Beginners' Luck." I give it a 7/10.
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