Beginners

When is a romantic comedy not a rom-com? I suppose when there’s less comedy than you would normally expect. Beginners probably is though a rom-com all the same, but maybe it’s unfair to get weighed down pigeon holing the film.
There are a number of interesting traits and techniques on offer here. Throughout the film there is an engaging and interesting use of available light. We’re not given too much sunlight and this is because we’re caught in the pallor of grief as Ewan McGregor’s character, Oliver, comes to terms with the death of his father and so re-appraises the life and death of his mother. It turns out that when his mother died his father came out as being gay.
It is significant that not long after the death of his father Oliver meets a woman who sees the sadness in his eyes and with whom he starts a relationship. This helps him to reappraise what has happened in the past. How could his father leave his mother to be empty in her life, even though he professed that he did love her. We see that throughout the beginnings of Oliver’s new relationship his mind is more on endings. This therefore colours his whole state of mind, which not only affects love but his work as well.
It’s interesting and entirely valid as well for the director, Mike Mills, to give us a little tutorial on the nature of memory. We are presented at times with what Oliver remembers happening and what he would have liked to have happened. In the end there is the realisation that you have to acknowledge a persons whole character, love them for whom they are or were and not just pick and choose the bits you want to.
There is also an interesting device of Oliver inheriting his father’s dog. Left alone with the dog Oliver tells him what’s on his mind, which is not unheard of. At times we are presented with subtitles of what the dog is thinking. This may be what Oliver thinks the dog is thinking or of course it could just be in the director’s imagination. Anyway, Oliver and the dog have a symbiotic relationship, each of them reminding the other of the father.