Beginners

Movie: Beginners

Genre: comedy/drama

Synopsis: Hal (Christopher Plumber) is a 75-year-old widower.  After forty+ years of marriage, he has decided to come out of the closet and become actively gay. The bad news is that he also has terminal lung cancer.  Hal’s son, Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is trying to help his father through his final days, while at the same time trying to make his relationship with a new girlfriend work.  Through flashbacks, we also see the relationship between a young Oliver and his unhappy mother.

My two cents: Christopher Plumber and Ewan McGregor both turned in pretty good performances. It was a bit slow moving at times, but worth watching if you like character-driven movies.  A real plus for me was the cartoons or caricatures that Oliver would periodically come up with (he was some kind of artist).

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