Coating great sadness, composed of loneliness and departure, Beginners is superbly wrapped in funny one-liners as well as other fun and original bits. The film feels more like a collection of lose notes from a memoire, recorded in stills, period pieces, and short acts, all thrown scattered without warning into the film’s present. What holds this film back from being even better is mostly an issue of pacing. The writer director Mike Mills, who based the story on the true-life coming out of Mills' father at the age of 75, five years before his death, is a little too in love with his materials, and rather than allowing the movie to pick pace, it remains a little too heavy, melancholic, and feeling too long. Mills does, however, bring fresh perspective, and as mentioned, plenty of original bits. He is deliciously supported by a wonderful cast, led by an all too serious Ewan McGregor, a dazzling Christopher Plummer and a sweet Mélanie Laurent.