Life, Interrupted

Beginners begins with an end. (How's that for a sentence?) Oliver Fields's father, Hal, has just died. Three years earlier, his mother passed. In the interim, Hal had announced to Oliver that he's gay (and secretly had been his entire life) and thus proceeds to frequent dance clubs, join gay social groups, and even get a much younger boyfriend. He's finally living the life he never had the chance to do openly.

After his father's death, Oliver shuts down. Except for a couple of work friends, his only companion is Arthur, Hal's Jack Terrier who "knows up to 150 words, but doesn't talk"--though that doesn't stop the audience, nor presumably Oliver, from knowing what he's thinking. It isn't until his friends drag him (and Arthur) to a costume party that his life begins to show some promise of happiness.

It's at this party that the cutest of Meet Cutes occurs. Oliver, dressed up as Sigmund Freud, starts to play therapist to some of the other party guests. When a man dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West gets up from the couch, Anna (Melanie Laurent)--dressed up as... well, I'm not sure exactly--lays down. But she has laryngitis and can't speak, so must communicate by writing on a notepad. She wonders why he's at a party if he's sad. Except that, all of a sudden--for a night's worth at least--he isn't sad anymore.

Between the "talking" dog and too-cute-for-words romance, this rundown might make the film sound a little twee for most, but that's all balanced by a seemingly unbearable sadness that pervades its romantic leads. Hal has already dealt with his and his life is now concerned with seeking pleasure. Oliver and Anna are weighed down by their past, by the way their family histories have shaped them. (At work, Oliver creates a series of sketches called "A History of Sadness"--for a band's CD cover, no less.)

In a way, much of what Beginners is about is how we all deal with our histories. The structure itself is built around the past. The two main story threads are not concurrent. Hal's coming out and subsequent battle with cancer obviously takes place just before the narrative involving Oliver and Anna. And the bulk of the movie jumps back-and-forth between the two. The film jumps even further back to Oliver's relationship with his mother. Even what seems to be the present-day story of Oliver and Anna is actually in the past: "This is 2003" he says in voiceover, not 2011.

Much of Oliver's voiceover is spoken in this manner: "This is 1955, this is what the sun looks like, this was the President." Except for when he speaks of Anna in this way, what we see are photographs. And it's not just the obvious things like the sun or the president, but a picture of a bathroom where gay men like his father had to hideout for their sexual trysts or a picture of the crime scene when Harvey Milk was killed. Everything we know of life is filtered through our memory; it's how we define our experience of it.

And when the weight of that history consumes us, it can be overwhelming--especially on relationships. Oliver confides to a friend that, at 38, he feels too old to be falling for a girl again, but of course his father shows that you're never too old to be doing anything.  The romance between Oliver and Anna is at the same time joyful and melancholic. In between late night subversive trips to vandalize the streets and billboards of L.A. and runs in the park, the two talk wistfully of their childhood and their parents.

The performances by the three leads are all fantastic. McGregor, after last year's I Love You Phillip Morris and The Ghost Writer, has put together three of the best performances of his career. And with his work here, he for the first time posits himself as the sadsack everyman, but with enough charm and depth to keep you rooting for him. Laurent--seen by me so far only in Inglorious Basterds--is, well, the kind of girl you only find in these kinds of movies. Much of what she conveys is with her eyes and face. She's beguiling in the more comedic scenes and heartbreaking in the sadder ones.

But it's Plummer who steals the movie. Many actors have done their best to leap right off the screen and bring the tragedy of terminal illness to Shakesperean levels. Plummer, instead, decides to keep everything on an even keel. Hal doesn't wallow in his disease, nor does he show a Scarlett O'Hara-like pluckish resolve. He's happy with his life. And he wants to continue to be happy with what he's got left. Unlike Oliver and Anna, there is no room for "sadness" in his vocabulary.

Hal doesn't feel the need to worry about the new phases in his life. He's come to terms with it. Oliver and Anna have not adjusted to theirs. In a way, all life is is a series of false starts. And while the movie may be about beginnings and endings, those two are probably the simplest things to navigate. It's all the stuff in between we're still trying to figure out.