Why I loved "The Beginners" (and why Christopher Plummer deserves the Oscar)

The Beginners is a testament to the fact that life is unpredictable, unreliable, and at times unbearable. And by life, I euphemistically mean the people around us. 

People are social by nature and therefore go to great lengths and pains to be together, even if it feels like misery. Sociability made sense as a survival instinct for most of our species's history. Over time, we have remained instinctively social even though it is not immediately necessary for the sake of our survival. 
It makes sense to be social if the relationship is beneficial, especially if the benefit is symbiotic. But what if its not?

Why do we stay anyway? Whats in it for us to do something that does not provide an clear benefit (or in fact, strips other benefits from us?)?

 

Christopher Plummer plays Hal, A gay man who was in a heterosexual marriage until his wife died of cancer. As the movie unfolds, we learn that the wife was aware of his sexual orientation and chose to be with him anyway. They have a son together, Oliver, who learns about this secret when Hal decides to tell him after his mother's passing. We see Oliver begin on a journey of attempting to understand his parents' decision to live this repressed/private life. 

Plummer's portrayal of Hal post-spousal-mortem makes it clear that he is much happier living his life as a gay man, even if his experiences are peppered with bouts of cancer pains. Deciding to come out of the closet as a old man shows courage and also a new awakening of his choices of how to be social among his fellow man. He made a conscious decision as a young man to stifle who he is as a means to get by with societies norms. This film focuses on his rebirth as a new person who stopped trying to be something he is not. 

And so, to be able to create such a rich character as Christopher Plummer has that illustrates so elloquently the fact that many of us choose to sacrifice our own basic desires for the sake of other more socially acceptable acts of life, is why he should win the Oscar for best actor in a supporting role.