Movie Review: “Beginners” (+)

June 6, 2011

After reading the reviews of this film, I had the impression it was breaking new ground. Regrettably, it did not.

The story is about a family that includes the father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), his wife of 44 years, Georgia (Mary Page Keller), and their son, Oliver (Ewan McGregor).

The movie opens with Oliver discarding Hal’s belongings after his death. We learn through flashbacks that when Georgia died, Hal told his son he is gay. Georgia, who knew he was gay before they married, believed she could change him. She did not. After Georgia’s death, Hal alters his lifestyle and begins a relationship with a younger man, Andy (Goran Visnjic). As a youngster Oliver knew something was not quite right about his parent’s relationship, but when he questioned his mother, she put him off with her responses.

Oliver has had several relationships, none of which were satisfactory. At a masquerade party dressed as Dr. Freud, he meets Anna (Melanie Laurent) who flops on a couch pretending to be a patient with laryngitis. Unable to speak, she writes notes, and an affair soon begins.

The actors are all wonderful, including a Jack Russell terrier that understands 150 words of English and, I think, wants to marry Oliver. Bizarre, yes. It’s all very lovely and intriguing but sexually too antiseptic raising the question, “Where’s the beef?” With such a terrific cast and a cerebral review in The Times, I was expecting the theater to be crowed on opening night. It was not. Somehow the audience knew this picture was no “Brokeback Mountain.” It is worth seeing but far from a spectacular film breaking new ground.