Beginners

Last night, I saw the first film of 2011 that I truly loved. It was pretty much everything I wanted in a movie. It felt French, it felt kind of Woody Allen (not too much)  but mostly it felt like the kind of American I consider myself to be. I laughed in a free kind of way that made me feel like I was at home again and made me miss where I was born: Los Angeles. 


I think Ewan McGregor is pretty much always perfect, and here is no exception, giving costume party-goers analysis as Sigmund Freud, even though he's grieving the loss of his father, and seeking solace in a dog named Arthur and a French actress named Anna (Melanie Laurent of Inglorious Basterds awesomeness) who asks him on paper (she has laryngitis) "Why are you at a party if you're sad?"


Really stealing the show, however, is the bright-eyed, almost child-like Christopher Plummer. It was almost inconceivable that I could like the man immortalized on screen singing "Edelweiss" anymore than I already did, but as Hal, the father who came out at age 75, I just wanted to adopt him for my own.  


And Mike Mills, I'm watching you. If you keep writing and directing movies this good, you'll have a fan for life in me. See this film!