'Beginners' review:

From 'Thumbsucker' director Mike Mills, 'Beginners' is a thoughtful, loosely autobiographical film about a thirty-something artist, Oliver (Ewan McGregor), whose father has recently died of cancer a few short years after coming out as gay in his mid-seventies - in a sense, beginning life too late. It's set a few months after Hal (Christopher Plummer) has died and sees his son struggling to move on with life, forming an unhealthy attachment to his late father's dog and with unbearable sadness effecting his work and friendships.

There are frequent backflashes as Oliver thinks back on growing up with his equally unfulfilled mother and his father's life as a closet homosexual, with events put into historical and social context in a way which is less gimmicky than it might sound. Meanwhile Oliver embarks on a new beginning of his own, falling for Anna, a French actress played by an especially winsome Melanie Laurent. It's an ambitious film - as much about the human condition and the history of sadness as it is about love - which mostly lives up to its promise.



'Beginners' is a tearjerker without feeling manipulative and it's life-affirming without being sickly. A large part of its success rests with Christopher Plummer, whose performance as Hal is especially heartbreaking, with the old man facing death when he is at his most vital. His insatiable appetite for new experiences is particularly bittersweet and Mills' reflection on his own father's life as a closet homosexual in the 1950s shows great insight and empathy. Oliver's mother (Mary Page Keller), also deceased, isn't neglected as a character either, with time given to her end of a compromised marriage and relationship with Oliver as a boy.

For his part, McGregor gives an understated and sensitive performance which is easily his best in years, even sporting a decent American accent. Laurent, who appeared on Hollywood's radar after starring in Tarantino's 'Inglourious Basterds' two years ago, is also a presence, showing great range. All of the characters are well drawn and sympathetic - with each of them coming to terms with misfortune and tragedy without self-pity. As romantic leads, McGregor and Laurent enjoy great chemistry and their scenes together are a charming, even if the film is at its best when Plummer is on-screen.



Where it falls down slightly is in its sporadic attempts to be cute and quirky. The drawings Oliver does at work, hired to design a rock band's album cover, and scenes of post-modern graffiti, feel like something from a Fox Searchlight comedy. The superficiality of these moments doesn't quite mesh with the perfectly observed emotional honesty of the rest of the movie. It's also gloomily lit, with even daylight scenes taking place in semi-darkness - a decision no doubt intended to mirror Oliver's less-than-sunny disposition, but which becomes wearisome from an aesthetic standpoint.

Yet with its old-timey soundtrack and existentialist concerns, at its best 'Beginners' feels like vintage Woody Allen, without all the one-liners and with added cause to weep openly. Intelligent, insightful and deeply moving, it's one of the films of the year.

'Beginners' is out now in the UK where it is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Le Concert' review: If Jim Davidson could play violin...

'Le Concert', directed by the Jewish Romanian-born director Radu Mihaileanu, is a big cultural melting pot of a movie. On the surface (and from most posters) a French production boasting 'Inglourious Basterds' star Melanie Laurent, though many of the actors and much of the dialogue is Russian. Fitting then that the story concerns a once-great Orchestra conductor, Andreï Filipov (Aleksei Guskov), thrown out of the Bolshoi for standing up against racial intolerance towards Jews under Brezhnev. But, 30 years after the this injustice, Filipov intercepts an invitation to play in Paris, intended for the Bolshoi and resolves to take a rag-tag group of Russians, from all walks of life (including a wealthy oligarch), to France disguised as the professionals.

Yet, for a film which makes a feature of the fight against racially motivated intolerance, 'Le Concert' is pretty happy to indulge in stereotype. Uncomfortably so: the orthodox Jewish musicians miss practice because they are hawking their wares across Paris from out of a suitcase; the unskilled workers immediately leave the hotel and become illegal immigrants working menial jobs; the gypsies make their living from stealing and forging documents and an Arab restaurateur threatens one patron by saying "they call me Muhammad Al-Qaeda". Some may see this as a good-natured celebration of difference, but I couldn't help but squirm uncomfortably in my chair as racial caricature after racial caricature was exploited for humour in this movie which very quickly descends into farce.



'Le Concert' certainly thinks it is a comedy and it isn't afraid to go pretty broad with it. An oligarch's daughter's wedding is marred by an all-out gangland shootout, for example (which feels as misjudged and out of place as it sounds), whilst the gypsies fake 80-odd passports very publicly at an airport. Maybe this is a very broad cartoonish way of commenting on corruption and criminality in contemporary Russia, but it strains credibility. Especially as the film plays it relatively straight at other points. It is also a film which is terrifically critical of the old Soviet Union and communism, with plenty of jokes about the old regime, so adding that to the cynicism about the modern era, you get a film which is pretty nihilistic.

Melanie Laurent is the film's saving grace, as she has an intensity about her which is always stirring. She is one of those actors who can communicate so much with a subtle change of expression. Aleksei Guskov is also pretty good, always portraying his character with a touching sweetness as well as a dangerous obsession. But mostly everyone in 'Le Concert' shouts their lines at one another in a way which is very unappealing and engaging. It is a film which seems to hate Russian people. For example, when the 80-odd strong Orchestra arrives at their hotel they are all continuously shouting all at once, bursting through the doorway en masse and surrounding the hotelier, waving their arms in the air frantically. These people are idiots, their characters thinly drawn and unsympathetic and, as a result, their plight is uninteresting.



The film scooped several César awards earlier in the year, for Best Sound Design and Best Music, and these were probably deserved. The Tchaikovsky music performed at the titular concert is mesmerising and intense. The fact that the final scene is more or less a long unbroken musical performance is the film's strongest suit - and in that respect it ends of a high note (no pun intended). But for much of the film's running time, it is nothing more than a misfiring comedy of racial difference that feeds off the very intolerance it claims to be in opposition to. A woeful film.

'Le Concert' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is still on a limited release in the UK.