Beginners

60/100 (2011, 100 min)  
Plot: A young man is rocked by two announcements from his elderly father: that he has terminal cancer, and that he has a young male lover.
Director: Mike Mills
Writer: Mike Mills
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer and Mélanie Laurent

It's never too late

I find it amusing that this year we seem to be flooded with movies that insist into making life itself their protagonists, at the same time being mind numbingly dull. First we have the ponderous experience entitled "The Tree of Life". Now we have "Beginners" - a movie with the script so wasted, it borders on committing a crime. The story follows Olivier, sullen man approaching 40, who has just lost his father. Olivier spends his day talking to his father's dog Arthur and making his pretentious art entitled, wait for it, "the history of sadness". I felt bad for that dog - If I were him I'd run away from the owner like that - Olivier takes the phrase "being emo" and brings it to whole new level of nonsensical sadness, oh I'm lonely and I'm scared of commitment. Boohoo.

The script offers so much - very nice way of showing events, through small details in our lives - how pets look like in given year, what is considered to be pretty etc. The characters are all there - Oliver's father who comes out of closet at 75 and finds Young lover (Goran Visnjic acting as if his character was retarded, which I don't think was intention of the creators of the film), Anna, an actress who is moving from town to town and Olivier himself. Except for Plummer nobody has a clue how to play their roles - McGregor is trying as best as he can, but he is simply not good enough of an actor to pull this off.