Beginners (2010)

Beginners: Directed by Mike Mills. With Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic. A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer and that he has a young male lover.

“Beginners is a great film that will not satisfy a few viewers, as evidenced by other comments here. First, hereu0026#39;s what it will not do: it will not feed you a linear story with a single, simple plot. The beauty of this film is in its complexity, which faithfully reflects the dynamics of real life. There are flashbacks. There is highly cinematic use of material that is intended to suggest mood, rather than deliver it with dead dialog. Yes, the dog gets a few subtitles, highly credible for anyone who has ever owned a dog. There is even a brief moment in which solid colors flash on the screen, and we occasionally visit the protagonistu0026#39;s revealing sketches. There is a message in all of this that some will not appreciate. Several stories are magically woven together: the sonu0026#39;s difficulty in maintaining a relationship, the girlfriendu0026#39;s own hesitation to commit to one place and one person, the motheru0026#39;s endurance of a marriage that worked on only one level, the fatheru0026#39;s adjustment to his new gay life, and his boyfriendu0026#39;s worries that he is not accepted because he is gay. Whew! Thatu0026#39;s a lot to cram into one story, but it works remarkably well and we see in the end that all the characters were what the title said, Beginners.”