Day 15: Beginners

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) appears to always be discontent with life but the pain is heightened when his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer) dies. After his mother died, Hal came out and spent his time actively involved in the LGBT community. But he had cancer and spent the last few years of his life with Oliver. When he’s told that he’s going to be dying you can see that he’s crestfallen; he finally gets to live the life he wants but it’s not going to be for long and rather than let it depress him he decides to pack in as much as he can.

A couple of months after Hal dies, Oliver goes to a party and meets Anna (Melanie Laurent). You can tell that this is the first time in a long time he has connected with another person and he looks so hopeful that he'll find a happiness with her. His dog, Arthur, is also there and has this to say about it:

She can’t talk because she has laryngitis so when she phones him after he leaves the party she communicates with beeps. I mean, if that’s not the cutest thing then I just don’t know what is. They drive around and enjoy being with each other. She takes him back to her place and they just sleep. It all seems so easy despite the fact he’s obviously very sad. I always wonder how sad people have relationships because it seems like such a difficult thing. I find it so hard to communicate my sadness to people and I think it’s gotten to the point where I’ve just given up trying. If I can’t get it across then how can I expect people to understand?

Anna holds Oliver when he’s sad and needs to be held. Which is wonderful. It’s like in that film ‘Waitress’ when she’s talking to her child saying she wishes someone would just hold them for 20 minutes with absolutely no agenda. Sometimes people just need to be held, they don’t need you to say anything comforting or try and cheer them up.

They talk about how Anna can keep relationships going since she is always moving around so much. She says it makes it easy to leave people and end up alone. Oliver says that you can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people. He does this often, just pushes people away because he’s convinced it won’t work out and so he makes sure that it doesn’t. It seems I relate massively with Oliver, which is such a cliché but it’s true. I can’t help but focus on the fact that everyone leaves eventually, so I try to avoid investing time and emotions in them because I’ll be in pain later. But that’s a terrible reason and I am aware of that.

Hal:  Let’s say, since you were little and you always dreamed of some day getting a lion? And you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait and the lion doesn’t come. Then along comes a giraffe. You can be alone or you can be with the giraffe.

Oliver:  I’d wait for the lion.

Hal:  That’s why I worry about you.

I always forget how much I love this film. It’s so sad and so great.

9/10