Be warned: this rom-com will probably make you cry. At the very least it should have you forcing back a tear or two as a profound sense of sadness has romance and comedy fighting hard to win the day. That they do, by the smallest of margins, says much about the power of Mike Mills to tell his story with an acute sense of honesty and humour. Death, grief and unlived lives are not the chosen bricks of bright entertainment yet Beginners turns such narrative clay into a warm and beautiful story of love and hope. Therein the tears.

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is in an emotional dead-end, unable to find the right girl or, when he does, unable to keep her. Meanwhile Hal, his 75 year old father (the formidable Christopher Plummer), announces he's gay, has a young lover but within four years is dead from cancer. No spoiler – the film opens as Oliver empties his father's house and takes charge of Hal's sub-titled dog. Beginners is part auto-biographical character study (Mills own father came out at 75) pinned to the idea of a young man's emotional blockage. When Oliver meets Anna (Melanie Laurent), he takes tentative steps out of his cul-de-sac strengthened by a growing insight of his father's appetite for life.

Beginners could have been gay torture: a cheap and sentimental camp-a-thon that gave in to the clichéd excess of coming out stories. Instead this arresting film keeps a firm focus on Oliver's turmoil as Hal's death afford him the capacity to turn his own life around. Mills eschews cheap emotion and easy targets, keeping the tone subtle and honest. Vignettes with Hal's new friends, letter writing groups and revelations about his past (Gay History 101) create a narrative that is as close to reality as any gay film has ever been. Think A Single Man with less flourish, and more hope. What's more, it's funny in a perfectly, delightfully awkward way.

There's something about Hal's dignity and Oliver's despair that sneaks up on you in unexpected ways. Mills achieved the same thing with Thumbsucker, demonstrating a sincere affection for character, and brilliance with actors. Both Plummer and McGregor are sublime, effortlessly transporting their characters with an internal, indefinable shift that deepens Hal, Oliver and the film. Beginners is a sometimes wistful, often playful study of bruised hearts.

// COLIN FRASER
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