Here’s the audio that goes with this interview with “Beginners” director Mike Mills, which took place in the back of a car while Mills was en route to a screening of the film at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival (the film opens in theaters today)… Mills is a charming guy, and has made a lovely little film in “Beginners.” The film juggles chronologies as it details a pivotal period in the life of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), a man in his late thirties dealing with the death of his father (an endlessly charming Christopher Plummer). Through flashbacks, Mills shows the years leading up to Oliver’s father’s death – most notably in the fact that after Oliver’s mother’s death, his father decided to come out at age 75. In doing so, Mills is actually showing audiences a glimpse a pivotal period in his own life. While parts of the film are largely fictionalized (a romance between Oliver and a young French actress played by Melanie Laurent is fiction, for example), the base of “Beginners” is very much Mills’ own story. Warm, authentic and perfectly whimsical, definitely check out “Beginners” this weekend…
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