Beginners

Mike Mills' (Thumbsucker) semi-autobiographical and thoroughly beguiling second feature is as playful and amusing as it is bittersweet. Oliver (SFF 2010 festival guest Ewan McGregor in charming form) is a graphic illustrator living a cloistered life in Los Angeles when he meets Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a bubbly and alluring French actress. In a party scene that mimics the silent slapstick of Buster Keaton (Anna even has laryngitis), the chemistry between them is immediate. However life is messy for Oliver - his allergy to commitment compounded by his family history and the tumultuous recent past. At the tender age of 75, Oliver's father Hal (in a gratifyingly dandy performance by Christopher Plummer) came out of the closet, adopted a thoroughly flamboyant new style, took on a much younger boyfriend and then topped it all by announcing he was dying of lung cancer. Having fallen for Anna, Oliver finds himself facing two options - retreat (his usual MO) or take a lesson from Hal's aging exuberance and risk it all for love. Effortlessly cutting between three timeframes and visually inventive throughout, this deeply romantic comedy will have you leaving the cinema with a spritely spring in your step - and looking for the subtitles next time you see a Jack Russell!

Australian Premiere

• Director's Bio Mike Mills was born in Berkeley, USA, and studied at Cooper Union in New York. An artist, graphic designer and filmmaker, he has directed music videos for Air, Pulp, Moby and Everything But the Girl. Thumbsucker, his debut feature film, won awards at both Sundance and Berlin. Beginners is his second film.