A 38-year old graphic designer, Oliver , is dealing with the death, from cancer, of his father, Hal . Four years earlier Oliver's mother, Georgia died, also of cancer. Georgia's death was the catalyst for Hal coming out as gay, and finding a boyfriend. Oliver meets a French actress, Anna , and they start a relationship. It's not smooth sailing though.
Wwhile there's plenty of melancholia, there is also sweet wonder and celebration in writer-director Mike Mills' semiautobiographical tale of a straight son coming to terms with his own love's possibilities after his father comes out of the closet.
Film Comment Magazine
July 12, 2013
Mike Mills treats love and loss with a disarming tenderness and a refusal of sentimentality that make Beginners, his second feature, something of an anomaly among male identity flicks. What a finely wrought, wryly funny, transcendently sad movie this is.
The film is not about a straight man's struggle to understand how his father is gay; it's about learning that happiness is always possible if you're brave enough to keep your heart open.
