review by Adam Cook Patron
Beginners 2011
Watched May 25, 2012
Adam Cook’s review:
There is a really great heartbreaking and poignant story here of personal discovery yet it is buried under irksome and near film-destroying levels of quirk. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given it is from the director of Thumbsucker, a film suffocated by its indie credibility, yet with such a personal story I was hoping Mike Mills would have delivered a more restrained and truthful film this time around.
Instead we get a horribly self-aware film that constantly undoes the great work by Christopher Plummer and his fascinating character. Every embellishment seemed to rub me up the wrong way from the unnecessary voice over narration, the way McGregor talked to his father’s dog (and to make things immeasurably worse the dog gets his own subtitles too) and basically every aspect of McGregor’s character from his job, mannerisms and the friends that he keeps.
I really wanted to like it, there is so much potential to tell a heartfelt story about an old man discovering life for the first time when it is all too late. Plummer is a revelation in the role, revelling in his new found freedom yet never camping it up or cheapening the character’s transformation. When he battles cancer there is a chance for wringing the emotions but he plays the scenes beautifully. Every time his character is on screen the film comes to life. Unfortunately, this is very much McGregor’s story and none of these moments ever rings true. In the end, Beginners is a film of fleeting brilliance marred by trite and aggravating embellishments.
I've been going back and forth on whether or not to see this film, and your review pretty much confirms everything I've been concerned about.
Animals with subtitles is just the worst...the moment in Go with the cat makes me cringe just thinking about it.
@Ron: Still give it a go, just go in with low expectations.
@Steve: Yep, I've never seen it used well at all.
@Adam I'll probably still watch it eventually it just dropped way down the list.
If I could write my thoughts as well as you I could have written that review. Most folks I know really liked this movie...myself; not so much.
Good review Adam.
Thanks, ShowBill.
I can understand why people will like it, clearly many people do otherwise so many American indie films wouldn't throw in so many knowingly quirky elements into their films. At least it isn't as excruciating as a Miranda July film (I've not been brave enough to watch her latest).
I guess I'm in the minority here absolutely loving this film. I think it'd fantastic. I went out and bought it fairly shortly after seeing it for the first time. Hell, it's in my top 15. granted, when i watched a preview of it and my friend wanted to see it at the cinema, i declined because it didn't look interesting to me. how wrong was i.
I didn't mind the doggie subtitles tbh. yeah, its a bit bizarre and out of the norm but it didn't ruin anything for me.
I really liked that this film wasn't one of those "finding yourself" films where everything is fine and dandy. these two damaged people (McGregor and Laurent) are just so fucking bad at relationships yet find someway to work together and they are just beginners/novices at life...and i feel like there are a lot of people out there just like that and i haven't seen many films that attack that subject (I'm sure there are more than a few but i just haven't seen any).
@adam
did you think Plummer's win was warranted?
Phips I am with you. I really like this film and thought it was great. I heard such good stuff about it and I thought that it would be just okay, so I checked it out and I was blown away by how good it was and good Christopher Plummer was in the film. Does it suffer from some of the indie stuff, yet, but I still think it is a good film. I do agree that Thumbsucker was not a good movie. I think Chris deserved the Oscar hands down because of well he portrayed the character and how much you felt for him. I agree with what you wrote above.
@Phips: I appreciate my opinion is probably in the minority. I didn't find anything interesting, insightful or fresh in the McGregor-Laurent relationship (probably because I wanted to repeatedly slap both of them).
I haven't seen all the other Oscar nominated performances but I certainly have no complaint with him winning the award. As I said in my review, he was the one bright spot in the film for me.
I didn't even finish this one. And I'm the kind of person who always finish the films I see, no matter how bad they are. This was just a complete waste of time.
Except for Plummer, of course, but he wasn't in it nearly enough for me to feel like a complete viewing was justified. It was just so, so dull, almost painful to sit through.
The guy who directed this film (Mike Mills) is married to Miranda July oddly enough
No wonder I didn't like it.