This is the type of movie that makes sadness and confusion look appealing. It makes you want to have an existential crisis. It makes you feel as though some ultimate loss in your life gives you the right and freedom to detach from the world and move about aimlessly at your own pace. Plus, it has Ewan McGregor.

Basically, Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor) discovers two things about this father, Hal Fields (Christopher Plummer): One, After 75 years of living, 44 of which were spent married to Oliver’s mother, he has announced himself to be gay. Two, he has stage four terminal cancer. Needless to say, Oliver Fields feels slightly lost.

Now, this movie is not exactly what I would call a feel-good flick. After all, it is about a thirty-something man who has just lost his father and cannot hold down a serious relationship. However, there is just something about it that feels wonderful and inspiring. Perhaps it is Oliver’s new love, Anna (Mélanie Laurent), with her French accent and innocently, all-knowing emotional capacity for humanity and sadness. Perhaps it is Christopher Plummer with his quick wit, oxygen tank, and sexy young boyfriend. Perhaps it is Arthur, the wire-haired Jack Russell Terrier that was left to Oliver after his father died. Perhaps it is all of these things that takes a seemingly depressing and hopeless situation and turns it into something that we can all appreciate and understand.

While Beginners is not wrought with side-splitting laughter, it is certainly humorous. There was just something about seeing a group of thirty-something’s vandalizing the streets of Los Angeles with acts of “historical consciousness” that made me feel giddy.

The cast is truly fantastic and it left me wanting to see more. Even the brief glimpses into Oliver’s childhood with his eccentric, Jewish mother felt heartwarming, if not slightly odd as well. Christopher Plummer also does one hell of a job as an optimistic, almost-octogenarian with a youthful zest for life and living.

It is hard for me to find something that I did not like about this movie. The relationship between Anna and Oliver felt whimsical and doomed to fail at the same time. Oliver spoke to his dog, Arthur, much in the same way that I speak to mine. If I could change anything, it might be the ending, even though the ending stayed true to the form of the rest of the movie. I’m not saying I didn’t like how the movie ended, but sometimes I’m just looking for a solid and foreseeable happy future for two struggling people, instead of just an open-ended punch of realism.

Either way, I’d recommend it. If anything, it proves the importance of solidarity for all of us in the world who have suffered at one time or another for whatever reason.