Christopher Plummer, Ewan McGregor, and the most adorable dog you will ever see on screen in “Beginners”
Beginners, the new autobiographical film by Mike Mills, is about a man coming to grips with his 75 year old father both coming out as gay and being diagnosed with cancer, and how it affects the way he approaches his own relationships. Mills was inspired to make the movie after going through a similar experience with his own father.
The film can probably best be summarized by an early scene where Ewan McGregor’s character, Oliver, is driving a car in whatever direction Anna (played by the ethereal Mélanie Laurent) silently points. It is once of the first times that the two have met, and there’s a playful sense of intimacy and learning that carries throughout the scene.
Later in the film, we see a flashback where Oliver and his mother are doing the exact same thing. She driving the car, while the young Oliver silently points. In many ways, Beginners is a film about the ongoing struggle to figure out how to make relationships work and find happiness that is as much about the present as it is the past.
Basically, the film is two movies in one. One centers on the more traditional love story between Oliver and Anna, and the other half is about Oliver coming to grips with his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) both coming out as gay and, soon after, being diagnosed with stage 5 cancer.
I sat down with Mike Mills, as well as Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer, last week to talk about what this sad, romantic, and quirky film had to say about modern relationships, and what it was like working with a director on such a personal film. Check it out below:
Beginners will be released in theaters this Friday, June 3rd.
