Beginners: Pitch-Perfect

From only reading the simple synopsis or watching the trailer, Beginners comes across like a hodgepodge of paint-by-numbers indie elements attempting to create all those quirky moments that scream “unconventional.” You’ve got your dad who finally comes out as being gay. The clever, self-aware voice-over by the son. A meet-cute with a French actress-slash-model who can’t speak because she has laryngitis so all their romantic banter occurs with him talking and her writing on a little notepad. Toss in an adorable Jack Russell terrier who gets some witty, subtitled lines of his own, and you have all the makings of a movie so “indie” you’ll want to puke.

But that’s just based on the trailer alone. Somehow, the movie itself transcends all of those familiar tropes that could’ve plagued it into being a rehash of so many others, making Beginners a pure, surprising delight. I mean that in the most genuine sense: I found myself grinning like a fool during most of the film, not because it was overly hilarious – although, there were moments that were – but because of just how honest everything between these three main characters felt as it unfolded on the screen. Much of the credit has to go to the phenomenal acting by a never-better Christopher Plummer, Ewan McGregor, and Mélanie Laurent – although, none of it would’ve been possible without writer/director Mike Mills’ pitch-perfect performance of his own.

Rarely do we think about specific scenes in small, character-driven pieces. Usually that’s relegated to the big-budget summer tentpoles, like when I say Jurassic Park, you immediately think about the T. Rex attacking the kids in the Explorers. But every movie needs those memorable scenes even if they’re not nearly as bombastic as dinosaurs trying to eat people. Mills understands this, conjuring up moments that feel truly fresh and original even though we’ve seen them before. And, while all of those excellent scenes were on the page long before they were ever captured on celluloid, Beginners still could’ve fallen into that schmaltzy realm of film that gets too damned cute for its own good and feels just as hollow as a Hollywood rom-com had it not been for Mills’ masterful direction.

Despite the plot being relatively straight-forward, Mills structures it so that we’re watching two, concurrent storylines – one from the past, one in the present – with some flashbacks to the way-back-when thrown in there for extra spice. Toss in voice-over narration and the aforementioned pup with his own subtitled lines and there’s plenty of room for error. This could easily have gotten screwed up royally in the execution from page-to-screen. But this one didn’t. Beginners clearly is not the work of a beginning filmmaker, rather one hitting his stride, which is a welcomed surprise from his previous effort, Thumbsucker: a film that, on the page, probably worked much better than as a film. That one felt like an indie movie for the sake of being an indie movie, as if it had those specific quirky elements because it had to fit into that genre. However in Beginners, everything works because it’s so honest, with thoroughly realized characters who live and breathe beyond the fleeting glimpses we get in the under-two-hours of screen time we get to spend with them. Yes, Ewan McGregor’s Oliver talks to his late father’s dog who then sometimes “responds” with subtitled quips, but the way it’s played is that it’s clear to everyone – including Oliver – that the dog isn’t actually speaking; it’s merely an adorable way to express his own inner feelings that doesn’t come off as pretentious in any shape or form, an unpretentious narrative device that’s organic to the world Mills creates.

Watching Beginners felt like reading an incredible short story. Despite it being an original screenplay, I found myself wanting to spend more time with Oliver, Anna, and Hal in the same way that I’ve felt when finishing up a good book, which is a different sentiment entirely from hoping for a sequel. Not that I’d ever ask for a sequel nor imagine one — although, the same was said after Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and he turned out a superior follow-up, so what do I know?

There’s only one misstep that I thought Mills made, but I don’t want to get too involved with it here since, with a film as enjoyable as this, I’d rather not give anything away. But, given how detailed he’d been with everything else, I felt that he gave short shrift to Oliver and Anna’s relationship late in the film. He didn’t give us any “scenes” like he had earlier on – the costume party where they meet, the roller arena where they go skating, the faux-phone call with her father – that were so effective in portraying where they were at in their budding relationship. Granted, he’d already set it up so well, and McGregor and Laurent were so utterly convincing that it didn’t detract from the experience enough to keep me from fully enjoying it. Bringing it up at all is just picking nits because it’s still one of the most truly enjoyable times I’ve had at the theater this year.