Mike Mills gives awkward people time to accept affection, and we value his patience and humour. That patience is moving in Beginners, though the same care sometimes leaves its romance stalled for too long.
Fi1m perspective
In Beginners (2011), an awkward pause is something Mike Mills is prepared to wait through. He lets unhappiness make people difficult company without treating it as a permanent excuse. We were moved by the halting attempts to accept affection, because Mills lets grief interfere without removing the possibility of laughter. The humour matters: these people can be sad without requiring everyone around them to be solemn. Mills is good at making that distinction, even when we wish he would get the conversation moving.
He came to features through graphic design, music videos, shorts and documentaries, making his debut with Thumbsucker (2005), adapted from Walter Kirn's novel. Beginners draws on family experience, and the interest in parents, children and generational differences continues through 20th Century Women (2016) and C'mon C'mon (2021). He wrote and directed all three, keeping the difficulty of understanding another generation close to the centre of his work.
His collaborators have included cinematographers Robbie Ryan and Kasper Tuxen, but his films also make room for pictures that do not belong to the immediate scene. Archival footage, illustrations and historical montages place private troubles alongside the times in which people live. In 20th Century Women, period music and cultural references help explain the differences between generations. C'mon C'mon interweaves its black-and-white fictional story with real children's interviews. We value the effort to give these characters lives beyond the family conversation, though small moments do not always need so much attention.
Our reservation is the time Mills sometimes takes to move a relationship forward. In Beginners, the central romance stalls often enough for its hesitancy to become trying, and not every pause adds something we have not already understood. Christopher Plummer gives us a firm reason to recommend it despite that hesitation. We would welcome a little less protection for the characters and a little more pressure on them to act. Start with Beginners, provided a romance that takes its time is what the evening calls for.
Biography
Mike Mills is an American film director, writer and graphic designer. Born Michael Chadbourne Mills on 20 March 1966 in Berkeley, California, he graduated from Cooper Union in New York City. He began his career in graphic design and music videos before making his feature directorial debut with Thumbsucker (2005).
Mills is best known for his subsequent independent films Beginners (2010), for which he served as director and writer, 20th Century Women (2016) and C'mon C'mon (2021). For 20th Century Women he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His work often draws on personal and autobiographical elements.
