Yes, it’s got a Jack Rus sell terrier who speaks in captions and cute animated interludes. Plus a cringe-worthy Halloween party where the hero, masquerading as Sigmund Freud, meets a potential romantic partner who communicates exclusively in writing — because, she claims, she has laryngitis.
Mike Mills’ “Beginners” is certainly overflowing with Sundance-friendly indie quirks, and the first half-hour is so slow I would have been tempted to bail if I weren’t on duty.
But this superbly acted and ultimately disarming dual coming-out comedy-drama — which turns out to be semi-autobiographical — certainly grows on you, despite all of the twee touches.
Ewan McGregor is terrific as the Mills surrogate, a graphic artist whose father (Christopher Plummer, who may well get an Oscar nomination for his subtle work here) has just died.
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McGregor’s narration informs us that the old man, a retired museum director, came out as gay five years earlier, following the death of his wife of 45 years, McGregor’s mother.
Will the emotionally arrested son, who is in his late 30s, learn from his dad’s example?
The son’s courtship of the aforementioned woman — an actress well-played by Melanie Laurent of “Inglourious Basterds” and, Mills insists, not based on his real-life wife, the actress-filmmaker Miranda July — proceeds by fits and starts.
Mills alternates this with flashbacks from the final years of the old man’s life.
The increasingly frail dad takes a much younger male lover (Goran Visnjic), and actively embraces his sexual identity with the son’s support and encouragement.
Mills also includes brief, bittersweet childhood memories of his repressed mother (Mary Page Keller), who married dad even though she knew he was gay.
The film reminds us this was an all-too-common arrangement in the 1950s, when homosexuals regularly faced arrest.
Mills doesn’t push the idea that mom didn’t get a second chance, unlike the men in her life.
But it’s one of the elements that makes “Beginners” — not your usual gay-pride movie — pay off for an audience with a little patience.
lou.lumenick
@nypost.com