Beginners Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Oliver meets the irreverent and unpredictable Anna only months after his father Hal has passed away. This new love floods Oliver with memories of his father who -- following 44 years of marriage -- came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life. The upheavals of Hal's new honesty, by turns funny and moving, brought father and son closer than they'd ever been able to be. Now Oliver endeavors to love Anna with all the bravery, humor, and hope that his father taught him.
No matter how much you prepare for the inevitable, it doesn't make its arrival any easier to bear. Loss aches, and deep loss wounds. We try to grasp at any relief we can find lingering in the subsequent sadness -- the knowledge that a fading friend's suffering has finally come to an end, that their life was full and full of love, that mere memories will sustain us in times of inconsolable loneliness -- but there are some people who are so fundamentally infused in everything we once were, everything we've come to be, and everything we still hope to become that any relief we latch onto seems incapable of providing the solace we so desperately wish it would. It only burns that much more, pierces that much deeper, catches us that much more unaware. Beginners, writer/director Mike Mills' sweetly poignant, refreshingly understated yet at-times infuriatingly elusive semi-autobiographical dramedy, doesn't waste time unfurling or embracing any agenda. It isn't a quote-unquote gay rights film, it doesn't offer much in the way of social commentary, and it doesn't concern itself with the sort of peripheral politicizing most others might. Flawed and uneven as it sometimes is, it's a story of illness and loss, identity and legacy, and the unshakable bond between a father and son. Above all, though, it's a story about bracing for, being shaken by and recovering from the inevitable, and it will disarm anyone who's tasted such bittersweet hardship.
As Beginners, well... begins, we learn that Oliver (Ewan McGregor) has recently lost his elderly father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), to stage four cancer. The story itself is told through a series of interlocking flashbacks, brief history lessons and initially tangential episodes; the resulting stream-of-consciousness narrative follows Oliver as he falls for an eccentric French actress named Anna (Inglourious Basterds' Mélanie Laurent) while reflecting on his father's life, twilight and passing. Thankfully, Mills provides linear context from the nonlinear outset. Years before, after the death of Oliver's mother (Mary Page Keller), Hal comes out of the proverbial closet, a potentially shocking revelation that Oliver handles in relative stride. It is his dad, after all. He struggles to understand how his father could hide his true self for so long, sure, but he never judges him, never stews in a self-righteous pot of angsty rage, and never really takes Hal's decades-long deception personally. If anything, he empathizes with Hal, leaving him with just one goal: truly understanding his father. Of course, Hal's terminal diagnosis doesn't leave Oliver with much time to do so. Elsewhere, in the present, Oliver tries to develop a meaningful relationship with the emotionally obtuse Anna, but the two always seem to have one eye on the door, rendering any commitment they forge more of a burden than a blessing. Eventually, love and loss collide as Oliver contends with grief, depression and the allure of hope.
McGregor and Plummer's performances are so tender and affecting that Mills could have tossed out almost every other actor (save Goran Višnjiæ, who plays Hal's young polyamorous lover), nearly every other subplot, and the less integral encounters that clutter up the script and screen without really losing much of anything. And Beginners probably would have been a better film for it. Oliver takes a quick liking to Laurent's damaged waif in muted distress, but I had a much tougher time falling in love with the quirky French recluse. Laurent eventually chiseled her way through my heart of stone, but only after Anna became a more meaningful part of Oliver's story... just as it begins to draw to a close. But McGregor and Plummer? Had everything revolved around Oliver and Hal's immediate relationship, even at the expense of Mills' dueling timelines and Laurent's Anna, Beginners may very well be sitting among my favorite films of the year. Don't let McGregor's deftly wielded meekness fool you; beneath all the hesitance, civility and shy meanderings, his Oliver is a humble, haunted boy in arrested development, still raw from his mother's passing while being forced to come to terms with his father's stage-four death sentence. Plummer, meanwhile, delivers the performance of his career; one that, at the very least, should earn the veteran actor a Best Supporting Actor nod. Cancer may be attacking Hal's body, but it doesn't lay a hand on his spirit. With death fast approaching, Hal is more alive than he's ever been, living a life in the open, free of shame and filled with indomitable joy and inexplicable peace. Carpe diem, indeed.
Beginners is also best savored a second and third time. On my first trip through, I spent half the film wandering in circles, begging for direction without ever really being pointed toward Mills' intended destination. Anna is an enigma for far too long (I spent a solid fifteen minutes deciphering whether or not she could even speak), Andy is often shuffled off screen for no discernible reason (or deployed for some admittedly necessary and generally welcome comic relief), and Mills, operating with slice-of-life languidity, seems unsure of what he actually wants to say at key stops along the way. Still, it's an intensely personal story,one that will resonate with some more than others. Hal's homosexuality is dealt with directly and deliberately yet rarely, if ever, becomes a gimmick or, worse, takes its place on a platform. History and culture are explored, but only to offer further insight into Hal's long years posing as a heterosexual and the torment keeping such an all-encompassing secret caused him and, unbeknownst to little Oliver at the time, his family. Oliver's childhood was peppered with deceit, Hal's life was spent in hiding. It's only fitting, then, that Oliver's gift to his father is acceptance and Hal's gift to Oliver is honesty. And it all reads wonderfully, if not tearfully, on the screen. To their great credit, the father-son relationship McGregor and Plummer forge is authentic, touching and beautiful; enough so to grant the film strength to push through its weakest moments. Beginners isn't a cheerful film by any means, nor is it impervious to convention or convenience. But it is a thoughtful, insightful and, in the end, joyful film that's well worth watching, faults and all.
While shot with Red One high definition cameras, natural lighting and emotionally literal photography burden Beginners with a dull, stormy palette and at-times listless indifference. Still, the resulting image lends itself to Mills' tone and autobiographical tale, and imbues Oliver with a sadness that only seems to brighten when Anna or his father are near. It works, I'll admit, even if it makes Universal's 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer look a little under the weather. Colors are generally weary and washed out (even though a few primaries pop), contrast is a bit lacking, and black levels are muted on the whole. That said, skintones are lovely, reds and yellows have particular warmth, and the image exudes a confidence Mills doesn't express as fully elsewhere. Detail wavers slightly too, but only due to bouts of filmic softness, dim lighting and some loose-focus shots. It boosts Beginners' artistic credibility, sure, but it doesn't always result in the sharpest edges and textures. No matter. Closeups hold their own, object definition is clean and unhindered, and overall clarity and delineation are as revealing as Mills intended. There also isn't any significant artifacting, banding, aliasing, ringing, crush or smearing worth noting. Noise spikes here and there, but always as a product of the source, never the encode. All in all, Beginners' video presentation doesn't make any serious missteps.
Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track isn't going to turn heads either but, like the studio's video transfer, the lossless mix stays true to Mills' every intention and the cautious but kindly tone of the film's sound design. Dialogue is clean, crisp and clear, despite a few thin and lifeless lines. Ambience is minimalistic but believable, and the soundfield is just immersive enough to make Oliver's world more accessible than it might otherwise be. And, of course, with so many hushed conversations, restrained exchanges, and light lilts in Roger Neill, Dave Palmer and Brian Reitzell's buoyant score, LFE output and rear speaker activity is equally minimalistic. Fortunately, it's equally believable. There's little pomp and sonic circumstance to be had in Beginners, you'll get no argument from me. But a subtle track can be just as arresting as a bombastic one when it perfectly complements the image, themes and tone of a film. And Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio offering does just that.
Audio Commentary: Writer/director Mike Mills splits his time between the technical and the personal, often to great, albeit soft-spoken effect. Sometimes, though, his technical overviews aren't technical enough and his personal stories aren't personal enough, even when he reveals how much or how little he drew from his actual life and experiences when shooting particular scenes. Like Oliver, Mills seems a bit guarded and unsure of himself, as if he hasn't entirely decided whether or not the film is a success on its own terms. He tends to get lost in his own thoughts, searching for something meaningful at every pass instead of allowing the story of the film's development and production unfold more naturally.
A Short Film About Beginners (SD, 15 minutes): This somewhat unique making-of featurette ditches EPK glitz and glam to focus on Mills, his craft and the autobiographical nature of the film.
Beginners is warm, moving and intensely personal, but for every refreshing departure it makes, it clings to quirky cinema convention that much more. Thankfully, Mills' story and McGregor and Plummer's performances allow the film to resonate when it could have just as easily languished. The same could be said of Universal's Blu-ray release. Its video transfer and DTS-HD Master Audio track aren't exactly impressive, but they are faithful and perfectly suited to the film they accompany. Most of you will want to rent Beginners before making any serious commitment but, for what it's worth, Mills' off-kilter dramedy earns a slightly reserved recommendation from me.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment will release Beginners on Blu-ray this November. Director Mike Mills' semi-autobiographical dramedy stars Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) as Oliver, a graphic designer struggling with memories of his deceased father (Christopher ...
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