Mike Mills has created a thoughtful, joyous and tender film about love, romance, loss and life in all its messiness and beauty.

Beginners stars Ewan McGregor as Oliver, a single late 30-something still baring the scars of past broken relationships, as he tries to make sense of his current emotions.

The past and present of Oliver’s life is expertly and effortlessly woven through the narrative. There’s the present, when Oliver meets and falls in love with the beguiling and cheeky Anna (Melanie Laurent), only months after his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) has passed away.

Mills’ approach to filmmaking reflects his graphic art, as the movie darts, dreams and dances with inspired ideas, delightful devices and a playful dynamic. In an interview with The Scorecard Review Mills discusses filmmaking and his unique design background.

Today I went to your website. I think this movie, of all of your work, integrates everything you love. How are movies cathartic for you, and how do you integrate everything’

This one especially. I do graphic design, I do art, I do film. I don’t really separate them in my head. I have chosen galleries that have videos, and in my film work I have still stuff. That’s just a contemporary visual language. That’s my contemporary visual language. This film especially, I really think ‘ I’ve been trying to describe this today after my dad died, it’s my second parent dying, and part of grief is not down and depressed, it’s like ‘ life. I’m on the earth. I’m still here. I see death. But I’m here. So who am I, and what do I do’ And what is my stuff’ So I took everything I had and I put it in this movie. Everything I love. Not consciously, but just because I was in a toxicated life place. When someone dies for me, you’re in love with everything. If you like chicken, you f**king love chicken after someone dies. I was so lucky I got to do this. It’s really vivid in you. It’s not all down. My parents were 74 and 79 when they passed away. So it wasn’t like they got hit by a car at forty. Time flies.

What do you think was the most challenging part of this film’

By the time I got to shooting the film, that’s easy. Shooting the film is fun, it’s easy, and the thing I like to do most with my life. It’s the thing where I feel most alive, and what I was meant to do. And I adore it. The hardest part is getting through writing. Because you’re alone, and I’m not really a writer. It’s just a long dark tunnel. And then trying to get your film made. Hearing ‘No’ so often. Hearing it being described and misunderstood in the worst way. You hear people just not being interested for years is the worst part.

Youʼve got some great performances in the movie, from Ewan McGregor especially. But is there something about you that you feel no actor could re-create when playing a character based on you’

Well, the main thing I said to all of them was ‘Don’t copy me. The idea is not that you’re mimicking us. You have to find a way to make it your own.’ They’d be so smart about that. Christopher would be like, ‘Michael, tell me another story.’ I’d tell him something about my dad. But he knew he had to be himself. He had to connect to people through the lens. Ewan did. He is so casual, easygoing. I adore him. The weird thing was that we are the exact same size. In everything. He does wear some of my clothes, just out of poverty, because we didn’t have enough money to make the movie.

Since you do have a very art background, do you feel you made a transition from one to the other’

For me, I’ll say it’s a huge transition. I started out doing music videos and ads, and getting into that from doing graphics was hard. That’s hard for the rest of the world. And it was hard for me to use crew, because graphic design is very solo. And now I love having thirty people, and I love being captain of the ship. And I love making a great experience for everybody. I love being the host. That’s what the director is, the host. Every time it’s a transition in terms of your interaction with the world. In my head, they’re all in a spectrum, they’re all the same. I’m trying to communicate to people. Like, I love red. I LOVE red. It could be on a shirt, it could be in the movie, it could be on Anna’s dress. For me, I am exercising my love of red.

With this movie being so personal, was it what you expected when you finished editing it, etc.’

I think a movie ‘ like when I do a record cover, it’s short. It’s kind of like dating. And dating can be what you expect. It can be a one night stand. It can kind of be what you expect. But when you’re in a marriage, or a longterm relationship, it’s what you expected, and utterly unique, and utterly different. A movie, both of my films, is more like a marriage. They’re great, and they’re difficult. And they’re moments of joy, and moments of where you feel like you’ve screwed up so bad. I sleep at night. So I feel like I must have done okay. You can imagine the ways that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night doing this story. My dad would have a long list of things that I got wrong, and he’d be okay. That’s kind of the main issue for me.

What did you learn about filmmaking and about life from making Thumbsucker and now this’

I learned so much from both. It’s like two marriages, or two complete trips going to college. I learned a ton during Thumbsucker. Maybe the thing I learned the most, or the thing I enjoyed the most, was the actors. Creating an environment where the actor can do something that surprise themselves and you. Creating an environment that invites the unpredictable, or the that. Something about me, I am good at doing that. Or, I like it. And [the actors] seem to respond to that. And I love that. Formally, I’m a very shy person. I’m not shy anymore. I used to be very shy. What an actor does blows me away. When they’re doing it ‘ when they’re really free over there ‘ I’m like probably their best audience in the world. I am so impressed. I am so envious. I wish I could be like that. That seems so free and mindblowing ‘ how do you do that’ Creating that environment is what I learned last time. And this time, I think it’s being braver. Like, trusting that you can tell a concrete story that’s really specific, and that it will be sharable, and trusting that I can be funny. I think with this one that I embraced that my family is funny, and that I can be funny ‘ and trying to be more comfortable about that.

Beginners opens nationally on August 25, 2011.

For the full synopsis and trailer click here