Christopher Plummer knows what to do when he gets one of those roles that the Academy just loves– he under acts the heck out of it. Plummer’s Hal Fields is not just a dying gay man; he is an elderly dying gay man with a sad sack son and a cute Jack Russell who speaks in subtitles. Poor Ewan McGregor, who plays the son, has the misfortune of being stuck between Da and Dog; stuck in the flowering wallflower role of director and screenwriter Mike Mills retelling of a very personal family history in which he is a mere subplot. By the end the bitter-sweet story is just sweet. The ache gets hugged away. Beginners get a B+.
30 Second Cinema 