Director Mike Mills’ second feature in 5 years is based on his own experiences with his father. If it wasn’t based on truth, you’d think that the story was a Hollywood creation. In the lovely “Beginners” following the death of his wife of forty some years, the 75 year old Hal Fields (the Oscar shoe-in Christopher Plummer) decides to come out of the closet and live an openly gay life. This unnerves his son, Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who has relationship and intimacy problems of his own. And things get really complicated when his father gets a young boyfriend. Mills structure smarty sets the story after the death of Hal and uses flashback extremely well to tell three stories from Oliver’s perspective. We learn about: (1) the history of Oliver’s mother and father; (2) we get a taste of Hal’s unusual gay life and ultimate death; and (3) we experience Oliver’s on again off again struggles to find love with an actress (played by Mélanie Laurent).
Number 7- BEGINNERS
