The Oscars were really good. Billy Crystal’s bits were completely insufferable, but I managed to get some reading done.And maybe it was Billy injecting his patented variety of Novocain into the telecast, but for all the well-deserved hysteria given to The Artist and The Descendants, there was a very unfair exclusion given to what I thought was the second-best movie of the year: Beginners.
Yes, Christopher Plummer won for best supporter actor, but no one’s been talking about what is a truly beautiful film.
Beginners is loosely based on writer/director Mike Mill’s own life, in which his father (played by Plummer) came out of the closet after years of a passionless marriage, only to succumb to a very aggressive form of cancer. Ewan McGregor plays his heavy-hearted son Oliver, who tries to push through his mourning and eventually embrace the legacy of his dad’s boldness.
A year ago, when the trailer was released, I blogged about how good I thought Beginners looked. But rather than fracture a clavicle patting myself on the back for being right on the money, I’m just glad a film more than lived up to its potential. You really have to see it.
