Arts & Entertainment

Stunted emotions

‘Beginners’ finds father and son stumbling in life and love

Published

15 years ago

June 23, 2011

“Beginners” will stir your emotions.

Told in flashback, the script for the recently released film is loosely based on the story of the relationship between writer/director Mike Mills and his parents. In his sophomore directorial effort in feature films, Mills weaves the tale of Oliver (Ewan McGregor) and his new love Anna (Mélanie Laurent) with the tale of his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) coming out during his twilight years.

Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor in ‘Beginners.’ (Still courtesy of Focus Features)

It’s obvious from the start that this is a personal and real story. Mills does an extremely effective job in telling an emotional tale without treating the audience as if they are unable to relate. The result is a wonderful film about the complexity of life and interpersonal relationships.

After 44 years of marriage, Hal’s wife dies and he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. After sharing the recent diagnosis with his son Oliver, Hal also announces that he will be living the remainder of his life fully out as a gay man. The result is a balancing of perspectives between father and son. We soon witness Hal enjoying his “gayness,” as opposed to what he describes as living “theoretically gay.” Hal places a personal ad and enjoys house music for the first time. He loves to shop and host theme parties with his growing circle of friends. He is indeed relishing in his new-found freedom and joy away from the coldness and sadness of an unemotional marriage.

Not yet sharing the wisdom of his father, it seems Oliver will need to catch up.

The story drives home how much our own personal relationships can be affected by the dynamics and connections that we have with our parents. As a young child, Oliver’s mother struggles with an emotionless marriage and encourages her son to confront frustration by going into his room and screaming out loud in order to bring about “catharsis.” While some may argue the power of a good yell, the scene is an effective way of illustrating what can result in a relationship based on secrets and poor communication. Her approach to managing her marriage was a sign of the times, yes, but the actions obviously carried on into her own son’s relationship.

Hal imparts periodic dating and personal advice to his son. The advice seems to fall on pessimistic ears. It’s clear Oliver never witnessed any sign of true love between his parents. The ensuing personal struggle for Oliver to embrace his own happiness is the story that makes up the majority of the film. Oliver is having a hard time being social and is focused on sadness as a concept.

Oliver meets a girl named Anna and we witness them both struggle through the start of the relationship. Whether we like it or not, the model that our parent’s provided is one that we so often draw from when managing our own relationships. In two particularly moving scenes, Anna and Oliver struggle with communicating and find themselves coping with the awkwardness through non-traditional means. The couple write on a pad due to a case of laryngitis and role-play over the phone while in the same hotel room.

They want to connect on a deeper level than their respective parents ever could.

Oliver narrates the story for us and moves the movie along at a nice pace. Drawing on historical references in gay America, the story’s poignancy is driven home as the audience is reminded at how far the gay movement has progressed in the last 50 years. Interestingly, there is a brief sequence where The Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group, is referenced. The Washington Chapter of the Society was instrumental in starting the Blade.

While the historical references are interesting and provide context for Hal’s unabashed excitement with his life out of the closet, the real power of this movies lies with the characters. The movie’s script is creative in bringing about character development and the audience experiences understanding and a closeness with each of the characters as the movie progresses.

Through the flashbacks, we continue to see Hal enjoying his final days. Perhaps fueled by the knowledge that his time is limited, Hal even pursues love with as equal abandon as shopping for the latest fashions in neckwear. He continues to surprise his son’s preconceived notions of his father by dating and eventually falling in love with a much younger man. Hal continues to demonstrate to his son how much he embraces and loves himself in his gayness. A heartwarming scene shows an exchange between Hal and his hospice nurse. After complementing the male nurse on his hair, the nurse brings out his mousse and helps Hal to do his hair in the same way, providing the movie with one of its most poignant scenes.

Despite all of the angst, there are sprinkles of comic relief. Oliver eventually adopts his father’s dog, Arthur. Challenging the audience’s ability to suspend its disbelief while enjoying the film, Mills gives the audience the ability to read the Arthur the dog’s thoughts through the use of subtitles. The audience sees Arthur telepathically communicate to Oliver in an effort to encourage him to progress in the relationship with Anna: “Tell her the darkness is about to drown us unless something drastic happens soon.”

“Beginners” is about new life and new love. It’s about embracing life no matter what stage you are in. The emotions can be daunting, but the thrill is in the process, not an end result.

“Beginners” is playing at Landmarks E Street Cinema and Bethesda Row Cinema.

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Celebrity News

Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam

Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon

Published

2 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

Kylie Minogue with Madonna at the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam on Aug. 2, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Cejlon Studio)

AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.

The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.

“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.

Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.

Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”

(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”

Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue)

Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.

Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.

“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”

Theater

Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth

First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’

Published

11 hours ago

August 2, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Reggie D. White (Photo by Ambe J. Williams)

Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.

A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.

White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”

Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.

“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”

WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?

REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.

BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?

WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.

I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.

These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.

Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.

BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?

WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.

I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].

BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?

WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.

BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?

WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.

Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.