My timing is not usually too good, but I lucked out with Beginners. I had gotten it from the library just days before Christopher Plummer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Plummer plays Hal, a 75-year-old cancer patient who comes out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor). For some reason, despite all the things I liked about this movie, I was not totally taken in by it. I liked Plummer as the old man with a new lease on life, however temporary. I liked McGregor as the confused, somewhat wayward son who just bumbles along because he has nothing else to do. I liked the photo montages which punctuated the film. I loved Arthur the dog. (Perhaps not incidentally, Arthur is Christopher Plummer's first name.)
But I just wasn't swept away. Maybe everything was a little too neat and tidy, despite Oliver's bumbling. Or maybe he just reminded me of one of those clueless people for whom everything seems to work out swimmingly, regardless of whether they put any work or even thought into the direction in which their life is heading. Maybe it was my disbelief that beautiful French actresses fall out of the sky and onto your couch, even in L.A. Maybe it was just a story too unfamiliar from my own.
Bottom line: whatever it was, while I enjoyed the movie, I didn't fall under the spell of the story and probably won't watch it again.
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