Beginners: Critic Reviews

Plummer ... creates an inspiring, fully rounded man in late bloom, and McGregor responds with a performance to match.

he performers are charming, particularly Ms. Laurent and Mr. Plummer, with his killer eyes (still seducing after all these years) and a voice that echoes in your ears.

It is tonally elusive, cerebral and subdued, but this is a film with a healthy, if self-conscious IQ. It could be an excellent date movie.

Laurent and McGregor are the year's most appealing screen couple, their scenes together so realistic they seem improvised.

You know you're in the hands of a superbly gifted filmmaker when he can pull off a talking dog.

This is a bright-looking movie with a long face that seems to have learned nothing about life from death but cliches.

It's strongest as the story of an artist who, in his own way, has only begun to come out.

A beautifully humane, sweet and intelligent movie that knows exactly what it is at every moment.

The film's special mixture of sadness, comedy and hope sneaks up on you and stays in your memory.

"Write what you know," the standard advice goes, and filmmaker Mike Mills (Thumbsucker ) knew he had a compelling family story to tell.

Wwhile there's plenty of melancholia, there is also sweet wonder and celebration in writer-director Mike Mills' semiautobiographical tale of a straight son coming to terms with his own love's possibilities after his father comes out of the closet.

... the humans in Beginners never shape up into idiosyncratic, flesh-and-blood folks who get under our skin and engage our deepest emotions.

Arthur might have stolen this one were it not for a cast that inspires you to empty out your bag of superlatives.

Excruciatingly faux-naive and sentimental...

It's a hopeful fable with deep optimism and a cheerful style that kids itself.

Many cherish this film. To me the cuteness feels pushy.

In his follow-up to Thumbsucker, writer-director Mike Mills continues to evoke a state of perpetual adolescence: the only fears given real weight are of not being liked and of having to behave like a responsible adult.

It's a movie about untangling roots in order to grow.

Watching the film is like spending two hours consuming fat, sugary doughnuts of self-pity.

Beginners finds life both ripe with possibility and ensnared in the past. But then every morning is a beginning, right? If only we could remember that.

"Beginners" is a delightful film - gentle, playful, creative and ultimately happy - though it's a tricky journey.

Even the cliches in this warm mood piece seem unpredictable and without contrivance.

Deeply poignant and disarmingly personal.

Certainly grows on you, despite all of the twee touches.

"Beginners" is warm and revealing and bittersweet, if a trifle all over the place stylistically and thematically.