Weekly Review -- Exploring the uncharted

Beginners (2010) -- Human emotion is difficult to grasp. Fragile as air, it can slip out of our fingers and never be found again, lost in a sea of mundane predicaments. If capturing it is complicated in reality, it is twice as hard to do in cinema, where the very nature of the medium heightens every sentiment. Therefore, kudos to filmmaker Mike Mills for showing an unpolished slice of truth with Beginners.

Graphic designer Oliver (Ewan McGregor) exists in increments of pragmatic contentment and melancholic boredom. One day, his elderly father Hal (Christopher Plummer) informs him that he is gay, having found the freedom to be himself five years after the death of Oliver's mother. Soon after coming out, though, Hal is diagnosed with terminal cancer and passes away. Through flashbacks, we see how Oliver has cared for Hal during his illness, how his childhood has shaped his commitment phobia and how a chance encounter with actress Anna (Mélanie Laurent) starts changing him, slowly but surely...

More than anything, Beginners is a treatise on the reluctance to and acceptance of change. All of the characters go through a metamorphosis, from Hal's self-discovery to Oliver's newly found openness to Anna adapting to Oliver's fractured self-worth. I like how Mills' screenplay, with its sparse dialogue, gets to the essence of its subjects' humanity by both exposing and sheltering their vulnerability. The nuances in the writing allow the characters to find their personal freedom, a feat achieved by having them plow through speed bumps on the relationship highway. The script introduces humor in all the right places, while never disregarding the fleeting nature of existence and our need to connect to other people.

The performances are masterful. McGregor channels fragility and confusion, dipping into Oliver's childhood lack of affection to create a truly lost figure. Plummer gives a touching portrayal of a man who has learned how to live in the twilight of his life, only to have the ability taken away in its zenith. It is a soulful, understated performance that moves mountains without any fanfare. As Anna, Laurent exudes charming spontaneity, imbuing the character with wide-eyed curiosity and joie de vivre and showing the same kind of artistic honesty she showed in 2009's Inglourious Basterds. She possesses a guileless charisma that not many actors have, and I hope to see her in more intriguing films very soon.

A fact-based story of courage in moving forward, Beginners is a film that everyone needs to see to enrich themselves and their relationships with others. Its candor will make you reconsider what it means being human and its message of hope will brighten your view of the future. Every tale, every transformation, every journey and every Oliver needs to start somewhere in order to turn over a new leaf and, in the end, what is life but a collection of springtimes?

10/10