Director Mike Mills has a lot in common with the protagonist of his terrific new film, Beginners, out this Friday: Like Mills, Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is a sensitive artist whose father comes out of the closet at age 75 but dies soon after, leaving Oliver with his Jack Russell terrier and a whole new perspective on life and love. Mills even drew all of Oliver’s illustrations in the movie himself, and now he’s collected them in a new book, Drawings From the Film Beginners. “In the film, Oliver ends up drawing a ‘History of Sadness’ for a band called the Sads, and that becomes a big part of the story,” Mills explained to Vulture. “I was lucky enough to put them all in this book, and then I felt like I still had drawings in me, so I started doing a ‘History of Love.’” Mills subsequently animated a story from his “History of Love” — about “a neanderthal who has these desires but can’t live them out” — and we’re happy to show you the clip, which he also narrated. As Mills says, even though Oliver is touched by sadness, “Love is really the underlying theme of the film.”
