Mike Mills had a pretty typical childhood for a creative, misfit-type kid growing up in Southern California in the 1970s and ’80s: skateboarding, punk rock, art school. By the mid-1990s, he was a graphic artist with a penchant for groovy hipster minimalism, designing posters and album covers for the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, and Cibo Matto. By the late 1990s, Mills was making music videos and showcasing his short films at Sundance. His 2005 debut feature, an adaptation of Walter Kirn’s coming-of-age novel Thumbsucker, suggested the first step towards a sort of Indie Cinema 101 career: a little quirky, a little edgy, a little brainy and sensitive, a little shoegazy and dreamlike in its approach in favoring vibe over storytelling.
Then Mills decided he wanted to make a movie about his dad. His father was a closeted gay man who came out very late in life, then passed away at the age of 80. He mined his own experiences and interactions in the story of a thirtysomething graphic designer wrapping his head around familial dysfunction, life disruptions, grief, love, and mortality. He approached the story in a way that was certainly personal, but wasn’t straight-up autobiographical. It was affectionate, authentic, unflinching, tender but not overly sentimental or twee. It won Christopher Plummer an Oscar at the age of 82. It was called Beginners, and suddenly, you felt that everything Mills had been doing up to that point — all the underground culture and art school influences, the love of clean lines and 21st century retro deco cool — had given way to something far more open and unique without altogether abandoning the work that had made his name. Welcome to the cinema of Mike Mills.
