Beginners

Percolating a playful, creative, laid back, inquisitive aesthetic, wherein a son convalesces after his father's death thanks to the assistance of a gentle, curious partner, friendly and caring, challenging and supportive, Mike Mills's Beginners evocatively examines freedom through a palliative lens and a spontaneous framework.

Oliver (Ewan MacGregor) didn't know his father was gay until he came out in his seventies after his wife's death. Hal (Christopher Plummer) had enjoyed being married but with his wife's passing decided to openly explore other sides of his personality. Oliver responds with surprise and confusion but due to his open-mind isn't bogged down by bigoted preconceptions. Hal's terminal cancer complicates matters as he refuses to acquiesce to his doctor's corresponding prescriptions.

Oliver remembers these moments along with many from his childhood as he comes to terms with his father's death and falls in love with partner Anna (Mélanie Laurent). The story mimics the thought patterns of a melancholic mind as it searches for an indecipherable stratagem from which to rediscover joy.

As refreshing as Ghost World, Beginners lacks the predetermined bells and whistles that accompany so many polarized narratives and comfortably occupies the middle ground. It doesn't definitively judge, it doesn't segregate, unless the character in question happens to have been consistently segregated and has trouble not definitively judging as a consequence.

Its relaxed pace and sympathetic deliveries mask an unfaltering ingenuity disguised as a lackadaisical reflection.

One Week

Michael McGowan's One Week chronicles the impromptu road trip of recently diagnosed cancer patient Ben (Joshua Jackson). Upon hearing that he may only have 2 years to live and that only 10% of those suffering from his particular variety of cancer survive, Ben decides to hit the road motorcycle style and travel from Toronto to Tofino to figure shit out. His fiancée (Samantha Pierce played by Liane Balaban) and family are notably distressed and continually try to convince him to return home while Ben reflects upon the status of his relationship and whether or not he's truly in love. The narrator (Campbell Scott) supplies us with a constant stream of secondary information regarding the positive effects of Ben's trip (the good things that happen to those he meets because he met them) and we're treated to shots of several of small town Canada's giant tourist attractions including Wawa's Canada Goose and Port Carling's picturesque Segwun photo collage (not to mention Lord Stanley's Cup).

The shots of Ben's road trip don't unreel chronologically so don't be surprised if he's shown riding through British Columbia while still in Banff, but the scenes themselves prominently display so much of Western and Central Canada's rustic beauty that they're well worth the rental price. The cameo's from Gordon Downie and Joel Plaskett are a nice touch as well. Jackson sort of fluffs the one scene where he has to display some emotional depth but Balaban confidently backs him up and it almost passes unnoticed. A romantic look at the benefits of following your dreams and an exciting examination of one man's self-exploration, One Week's well worth the trip, especially if you've already travelled from Ontario to B.C. 3 or 4 times and want to reacquaint yourself with forgotten details of the road.

Funny People

Funny People's pretty funny but the last third of the movie tanks. Extremely successful comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler) gives down on his luck funny man Ira Wright (Seth Rogan) the opportunity to write jokes for him after he discovers he has a terminal illness. The two develop an odd sort of acquaintanceship, Wright's fortunes improve, and Simmons is miraculously cured. Afterwards, George decides to make amends for his lecherous youth and make it up with one time girlfriend Laura (Leslie Mann), at which point the film takes a disastrous turn, with even the fight between George, Ira, and Laura's husband Clarke (Eric Bana) falling flat. Which is unfortunate since so many films end when their cantankerous antihero awakens moralized (As Good as it Gets for instance), and director/writer Judd Apatow decided not to follow this trend.

There are more problems: in Funny People's last act, we lose supporting characters Leo Koenig (Jonah Hill) and Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman) whose offbeat temperaments helped carry the opening moments. There's a terrible musical interlude where George sings a maudlin song whose only saving grace is that it must have been ironic (it attempts to generate sympathy for Simmons but we haven't known the character for long enough to grow attached, so Apatow circumvents our expectations by making the song terrible, although, perhaps the irony is absent insofar as we should have been expecting something terrible). And unfortunately, the dramatic aspects of the script require a little bit more depth than either Rogan or Sandler provide, which, to their credit, only increases the value of their comedy, for you have to be really funny to find yourself playing dramatic roles which are somewhat out of your league.

But Funny People has many positive features as well. James Taylor, Norm MacDonald, and Eminem have hilarious cameos within, as do many others. Throughout, we consistently catch glimpses of the extremely cheesy films Simmons has starred in during his career, an example of Sandler humbly making fun of his earlier work. And George and Ira positively change and grow throughout as a result of their constructive enmity, Ira falling for complicated love interest Daisy (Aubrey Plaza), George learning how to not be such a dickhole.

Not bad.