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Mike Mills, surtout connu pour ses réalisations de clips, entre autres pour Moby, Yoko Ono et Air, se frotte à l'autobiographie romancée en s'inspirant du coming-out de son propre père à 75 ans pour écrire le scénario de Beginners, une comédie émouvante.

Beginners est un film si riche, aussi bien pour la forme que pour le fond, qu'il semble difficile d'en parler sans avoir l'impression d'en oublier un des aspects essentiels. Beginners parle d'amour, ça c'est sûr. D'amour filial, paternel, entre un homme et une femme ou entre deux hommes, entre une femme et son mari homosexuel...

Reprenons. Oliver ( Ewan McGregor), vient de perdre son père Hal ( Christopher Plummer). Il n'y a pas si longtemps, c'est sa mère qui mourait, à la suite de quoi Hal lui avait annoncé son homosexualité et son intention de vivre désormais en accord avec sa sexualité, après une vie passée à se cacher. Endeuillé, seul, Oliver se souvient de l'irrésistible envie de vivre et d'aimer de son père dans ses dernières années. Militant, fêtard, amoureux, Hal menait une vie pleine et heureuse. Mais quand Oliver rencontre Anna ( Mélanie Laurent), suivre les leçons de vie paternelles sera plus facile à dire qu'à faire.

Mike Mills bricole une histoire touchante et drôle, construite à partir de plusieurs matériaux : de la comédie, du sentiment, des dessins, des photos et des images d'archives. Cette grande variété donne au film un aspect patchwork particulièrement intéressant. Les flashbacks qui mettent en scène Hal sont des vrais moments de bonheur, tout comme les dialogues absurdes entre Oliver et Arthur, le chien de son père. En revanche l'histoire d'amour avec Anna manque de légèreté, ce qui crée des changements de tons brusques.

 Si l'on comprends l'utilité de cette sous-intrigue qui permet à Oliver de dépasser ses peurs et complexes, elle peine à captiver. Peut-être parce que les deux personnages sont trop semblables, peut-être parce qu'on préfère rire, les scènes du « présent » (en fait le film se passe en 2003) ont en tout cas nettement moins de charme que les autres.Mais ce déséquilibre, c'est aussi ce qui fait le charme du film, les petits défauts d'une œuvre en faisant souvent le charme. Et puis mettre en scène un chien aussi philosophe qu'Arthur, fallait le faire, on ne peut que tirer notre chapeau!

Par Flavia Guéhéneuc

Secrets de tournage

Une histoire vraie
 
Beginners de Mike Mills contient beaucoup d'éléments autobiographiques. Le film est basé sur une histoire vraie : le père de Mills a fait son coming-out à 75 ans. Peu de temps après la mort de son père, le cinéaste a commencé à écrire le scénario pour raconter cette période turbulente de sa vie. Dans Beginners, l'illustrateur Oliver, un alter ego de Mills, réagit à cette nouvelle tout comme Mills lui-même : il est content que son père gagne en vitalité et en joie de vivre. Pourtant, Mills a également ajouté des élément fictifs. L'histoire d'amour avec l'actrice française n'est pas un épisode autobiographique...
 
Histoires de coming-out...
 
McGregor a déjà tourné un film dans lequel un coming-out tardif change la vie d'un homme. Dans I love you Phillip Morris,(J'ai detesté!) Jim Carrey incarne un policier qui, après un accident de voiture, décide de vivre ouvertement son homosexualité. En prison, il rencontre Phillip Morris, joué par McGregor, l'homme de sa vie, et essaie tout pour le libérer...
 
Jouer du Shakespeare...

Christopher Plummer et Ewan McGregor ont tous les deux joué le rôle de Iago, l'enseigne d'Othello, dans des mises en scène du drame de Shakespeare.

A Beautiful Film
10/10
Author: adri_wholivesathome from Canada
13 September 2010

I was able to see the world premiere of Beginners at the Toronto International Film Festival this weekend, and it completely took me by surprise. It was a bit of a last minute pick, and it has been my favourite film so far, and probably one of my favourite films in general. To be simple, I will just say that this film is about life and the emotions and experiences that we all go through within it. Christopher Plummer plays a 75 year old man who after the death of his wife is finally able to explore his homosexuality, and we see him come to life through this experience.

It is not only about him, but mainly about his son played by Ewan McGregor, whose relationships with both his mother and father shape him as a person. These relationships and his own romantic relationships make up the core of his character, and it is through love, loss and discovery that the three main characters display an authentic view of humanity. It is an original film, and requires a certain audience, but I recommend that everyone should see this true gem.

The History of Sadness
8/10
Author: David Ferguson (fergusontx@gmail.com) from Dallas, Texas
9 June 2011

Greetings again from the darkness. This is a terrific little art-house character study with comedic elements, fine acting and superb writing. Mike Mills is responsible and he was also the writer and director on another excellent little movie from about 5 years ago called Thumbsucker. When I say little movie, I mean intimate and poignant with a nominal budget.

Three time periods are presented in overlapping form to an effective end. One period shows us Oliver (Ewan McGregor) as a young kid interacting with his mother (Mary Page Keller). Another period shows Oliver's father Hal (Christopher Plummer) confessing to him that he is gay (this is a few months after the mother/wife dies). The third period has Oliver trying to forge a relationship with Anna (Melanie Laurent) whom he met at a costume party.

While that may sound like a simple set-up, I assure you that the complications created by these characters is both realistic and head-spinning. It turns out Hal knew he was gay prior to marrying Oliver's mother, but claims she promised to "fix" him. Once he proclaims his gayness, Hal jumps in with both feet to all causes gay. He thoroughly enjoys himself and even meets a new, younger lover. And just when he admits to joy, inoperable cancer is discovered in Hal's lungs. This begins the second major secret of his life.

The scenes from Oliver's childhood provide crucial evidence on why he is so solemn and afraid of relationships. He suffers just as his mother did. Things begin to shift for him when, dressed as Freud, his party sofa becomes occupied by Anna - a beautiful, alluring French actress who, it turns out, is just as messed up emotionally as is Oliver. They make the perfect threesome ... including Arthur, Hal's Jack Terrier, who speaking through subtitles, lets us know when things are OK or not. Arthur takes a great deal of the heaviness away.

There are many elements of this film that I really like. The houses of both Hal and Oliver are full of as much personality as either of the characters. The look and pace of the film is meticulous and steady given the material. It seems to be naturally lighted from windows and interior sconces. Nothing even comes close to looking like a Hollywood set.

Ewan McGregor plays his part very close to the vest and conveys the pain and uncertainty that Oliver has learned over the years. His defenses are up! Melanie Laurent was my favorite part of Inglourious Basterds-she was the cinema owner on a mission-(j'ai trouvé aussi...mais je déteste ce film) and here she offers both hopefulness and melancholy. To me, the heart of the film is Christopher Plummer's performance. He portrays an elderly gay man with grace and then takes it to another level in his "sick" scenes. He is a wise man who may or may not understand how selfish he was, but is intent on showing Oliver that it's never to late to be a "beginner" in love.

wonderfully complex
10/10
Author: jrwygant from United States
26 June 2011

Beginners is a great film that will not satisfy a few viewers, as evidenced by other comments here. First, here's what it will not do: it will not feed you a linear story with a single, simple plot. The beauty of this film is in its complexity, which faithfully reflects the dynamics of real life. There are flashbacks. There is highly cinematic use of material that is intended to suggest mood, rather than deliver it with dead dialog. Yes, the dog gets a few subtitles, highly credible for anyone who has ever owned a dog. There is even a brief moment in which solid colors flash on the screen, and we occasionally visit the protagonist's revealing sketches.

 There is a message in all of this that some will not appreciate. Several stories are magically woven together: the son's difficulty in maintaining a relationship, the girlfriend's own hesitation to commit to one place and one person, the mother's endurance of a marriage that worked on only one level, the father's adjustment to his new gay life, and his boyfriend's worries that he is not accepted because he is gay. Whew! That's a lot to cram into one story, but it works remarkably well and we see in the end that all the characters were what the title said, Beginners.