A semi-autobiographical dramedy by graphic designer-turned-film director Mike Mills, Beginners is an effective if somewhat whimsical tale of people learning how to love and be loved — in this case, a father and son in unusual circumstances.

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is a sensitive yet emotionally stunted artist whose parents weren’t a perfect couple. It turns out this was because Oliver’s father Hal (Christopher Plummer) is gay, a fact he announces at age 75, shortly after his wife’s death. Hal is determined to at last live a gay life while he still has time to do so — which happens out to be very little, as he soon learns he has terminal lung cancer.

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Early in the movie but shortly after his father’s death (the story unfolds in nonlinear fashion, bouncing between 1998, 2003, and portions of Oliver’s childhood in the late 1970s), a grieving Oliver meets and quickly falls for a French actress named Anna (Mélanie Laurent). Both have trouble making and maintaining connections, and both play an emotional tug of war.

Largely based on events in Mills’ own life (except, we’re guessing, for the Jack Russell terrier that speaks in subtitles), it is a perceptive and emotionally honest movie that catches viewers offguard. McGregor gives one of his best performances in years as a delicate men yearning for connection; the same goes for Plummer, who gives Hal an infectious lust for life that perfectly balances Oliver’s weary frustration. Mills keeps his musings honest and grounded, avoiding the kind of self-absorbed navel gazing that usual sinks this sort of story and allowing for scenes of telepathic dogs and spontaneous roller skating that somehow manage to fall short of pretentious.

Beginners is showing at the Magnolia.