03/03/2012: Beginners [2010]

I think I read the IMDb page on this movie once, added it to my watchlist forgot about it and when I finally got around to watching it, I had no idea what I was getting into. While Beginners is in no means your average romantic comedy, it leans more towards the drama side of things.



The History of Sadness. Oliver's (Ewan McGregor) idea may have been a more fitting title for this movie. Oliver, having grown up watching his parents loveless marriage, has lost his mother 5 years ago and just now lost his father to cancer. However this was not before his father, Hal, revealed that he was gay and at the age of 78 began to be openly gay, taking a young lover and engaging in a lavish, and a complete turn around of a lifestyle.

I think Arthur (right) has about the second most amount of screen time, and dialogue.

Oliver now having lost his family, and his faith in relationships spends most of his time drawing depressing pictures and being nearly joined at the hip with his dog, Arthur. Then one evening he meets an actress at a party and while she says nothing the whole night, they hit it off. Soon a relationship develops which slowly becomes more and more depressing.

However Oliver's relationship with Anna is by no means the main plot of this movie. Instead Beginners chooses to juggle three different plots, placing almost equal importance on all of them. We also have Oliver's relationship with his mother as a young child as well as with his father in his last months of life. Truly for a romantic comedy, this movie focuses much more on the drama and after the initial fun becomes rather depressing.

I didn't know Staples was a popular shopping staple for cancer patients.

However while this movies story is rather confusing, passive and bleak the performances are very well done. Christopher Plummer who plays Hal Fields, Oliver's father, won numerous awards for his performance including an Oscar, and at 82 he is the oldest actor to do so. Ewan McGregor performance is one of the most passive characters ever, and Mélanie Laurent is recognizable from Inglourious Basterds due to her accent. She also puts on an interesting performance with a wildly shifting array of emotions.

Even Arthur gets rather dark and unhappy with his lines.

Overall, Beginners is one of the stranger drama's I've seen that are also kinda a romantic comedy. It displays pretty much every emotion whilst maintaining a stoic passiveness throughout the hole movie. It doesn't try to suck you into the characters, rather it has you watch from the outside, while still connecting with them on a few levels. I think anybody who watches this would have a completely different reaction to it than anyone else, and while this movie is nothing revolutionary I would say it's gone a little beyond the off-beat style so many of these movies have used these days.

I would not recommend anyone undertake this movie on a first date, or go into it thinking it's just another off-beat romantic comedy. It is however interesting with some great performances, somehow slipping under most peoples radar.









Link:
Beginners IMDB