paulclaassen I wonder if it could have been any more dreary and boring. It moved at a snails pace towards nothing. It was just talk, talk, and more talk about nothing interesting. Then again, this is written and directed by the same person, so it obviously meant something to him. Was his dad gay, I wonder? Would the script have been picked by a studio if it was written by someone NOT in the industry? Was Olvier and Anna's story supposed to be romantic? I felt nothing between them, except for lust maybe, because both of them have been single for some time. Desperate even. Also, why would Oliver tell Anna his Dad's gay and that he just came out, etc, etc. in their first moments alone together? Under normal circumstances a dude would just tell the girl his dad died, if she asked him. Why go into all the detail? To explain the story itself? Yawn. I liked the dog. He stole the show for me. If it wasn't for him, it would have been a pointless movie to watch...

merelyaninnuendo BeginnersA different perspective to peek into the family drama genre by metaphorically surviving through analyzing the changes in humanity, love and relations is easily a winning script. The writer-director Mike Mills is not only a smart observer that applies the ideology on paper but also aces in executing that paper on screen that will only speak wonder. Ewan McGregor; the protagonist carries it off with head held high and is supported thoroughly by a great cast and performance i.e. Christopher Plummer and Melanie Laurent. Beginners has an eerie perspective, powerful concept and amusing characters that is enlightened by stellar performance, perfect editing and excellent execution.

moonspinner55 Ewan McGregor plays a graphic artist in Los Angeles who enters into an uncertain romantic relationship with an actress while recalling the last few years taking care of his widower father, a man in his 70s who recently came out of the closet before being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. Mike Mills wrote and directed this lovely drama, one with poignant passages and performances, though it's a mild picture that feels benign at its core. Mills has a keen eye for catching small but meaningful expressions and moments that linger just long enough on-screen to make an impression on us. He's clearly helped by his nimble editor, Olivier Bugge Coutte, but nothing can disguise the thinness of Mills' screenplay (it's lacking not just in overall material, but also in dramatic cohesiveness). Christopher Plummer is heartbreaking as McGregor's dying father; however, his relationships with both a younger boyfriend and a circle of older gay pals are sketchy (Plummer gets involved in gay causes and tests the bar scene, yet his friends come and go at whim--whenever Mills needs them). McGregor is very low-keyed here (it's his least-offensive performance), yet this extremely quiet approach doesn't do much for a film which is already photographed in subdued shades and with minimal music (and what there is of a music score, from Roger Neill, David Palmer and Brian Reitzell, is terrible). Worthwhile despite its faults, which includes an unnecessary reprise of fatherly smiles near the end. Plummer deservedly won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. **1/2 from ****

slinkoff People in the future will look back on films like this that rate so well and think, "what the hell did people like about that?". It is mediocre, trivial, slight and these days almost a self-parody of the artsy type of movie with the plinky-plonky music and the scenes where everything is so subtle it forgets to actually happen.I like interesting stories. This is just a story. And I mean "just".The characters aren't all that interesting and what they are doing and feeling is not all that interesting either. This kind of cinema seems to want to tap into what it's like to be a human and to have complicated feelings and mixed up memories and it's just not very profound or special or enlightening and it definitely isn't very entertaining.Perhaps to like this kind of film depends on where you are with your own perceptions of the world or perhaps you just like having what you yourself feel, affirmed on screen and you see that as something that makes a film great, but I personally don't. I want some excitement, some interest, something I wasn't expecting, something to make me think or really feel, something profound or even something alien and unusual or eccentric, bombastic or beautiful. But this? This is pedestrian, lethargic, sometimes painful and ultimately just dull. Dull, normal, people with nothing really going on, just like nearly everyone you know. I don't want to go to the cinema to see or feel this. This is just life. I get it. I know it already. Give me some escapism please or at least some characters or a story better than this.