'Beginners'

'Beginners' (R) (3 stars)

Writer and Director: Mike Mills
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic

"Beginners" took an hour to grow on me but it becomes a solid movie with two beautiful and understated love stories. The performances are also amazing here including the best performance of Ewan McGregor's career so far. The first hour of this movie annoyed me sometimes with it's quirky humor and cuteness. The movie is too light and choppy and starts to become a Woody Allen rip off. The music in the movie is the same type of movie Allen puts into his movies. The movie's style too closely resembles the style of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" to me. Now a lot of people who see this might have not seen that movie but I fear the ones who don't like Woody Allen movies might not like this.

The good thing is if you stay with this movie the second hour comes more into focus and becomes grounded instead of the first hour's episodic nature. I really began to fall in love with these characters and felt the writing becomes smart and touching. Ewan McGregor is really good here giving a subtly powerful and moving performance. Christopher Plummer is Oscar ready here in one of his best performances. He is charming, funny and also subtly powerful like McGregor. The breathtaking Melanie Laurent is wonderful here and is an actress to look out for. Her work is miles different here from her wonderful and brave performance in "Inglorious Basterds". She is beautiful but also can act and makes you feel for her character.

You want McGregor and Laurent to get together and make things work. You want the father and son played by McGregor and Plummer to understand each other more. I like McGregor's soul searching journey in the second half which is touching. He is trying to understand his parent's marriage and not letting the same thing happen with his relationship now. There are some wonderful flashbacks when McGregor's character looks back on his time with his mother. "Beginners" nicely settles down in the second hour and starts to get it's own identity. I grew to love the characters, absolutely love the performances and to start to feel something. I just wished the first hour wasn't so cloying and cute.