beginners

beginners is about a bunch of maladjusteds, really. as the protagonist puts it, they're feeling "the sadness our parents didn't have time for." he has a father who came out at 75, after his mother's death, and she, the pretty, magical anna, has a father who frequently calls to tell her about wanting to kill himself.

but it turns out his father is ready to be bandana'd and rainbowed and courageously fun-seeking, and the cord is pulled on the nagging phone calls. and so we're left with the maladjusteds. he's a charmingly mopey graphic designer working on a history of sadness -- slide one is a sketch of a blank sphere: "before sadness was created" -- and she's an actress with a penchant for hotel rooms. they meet, delightfully, at a costume party with him as freud, mopily working the couch and her as a miming laryngitis sufferer. and then they play what a girl, ranting behind my mother and me after the movie, called children's games.

the girl complained that yes, indeed, they like children's games, but WHAT ELSE. and it's a legitimate question. they're acting out the neuroses their parents didn't have time for, and that is charming and sweet and beautiful, and the gay father is a darling and there's a little dog too, and i suppose it's all drawn together as a picturesque malaise, but there really isn't much. ewan magregor's eyes have been drunk with sadness for decades. but it's so sweet!


with alternately twinkling and mopey eyes, distant and playful, two maladjusted lovers deal with the legacy of the well scrubbed lie of happiness in the fifties. one's father just came out at 75 while the other's calls regularly to say he wants to kill himself. they have laconic, peculiar fun, have intimacy and have intimacy issues. there is a jack russel and a stable of lively gay friends. there is a lot of time for "the sadness our parents didn't have time for." it's a picturesque malaise and when it's playful, like the costume party where he plays freud, manning the couch, and she a kind of harpo with laryngitis, it is the most delicate, magical cute.