El porvenir

Isabelle Huppert plays Nathalie a woman reaching middle age with a long time marriage and two grown up children. She teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris and life is good. She also enjoys her former students who seem to nurture her in return for the nurturing she gave them.

Then her husband announces he is having an affair and is leaving her. With the certitude of familiarity now removed and new possibilities blossoming she has to decide if this is a tragedy or a new beginning and what to make of her life.

Now this is just compelling from start to finish all the performances are brilliant. This is one of those films where you feel you are being a voyeur in many respects – it is that well done. The sub stories too are done with such care that they segue seamlessly into the main narrative – rather like the way things do in real life. Huppert is superb (as she always is) Roman Kolinka as Fabien is rather good to and worthy of a mention as he is sort of ambiguous but in a way so contrived that you question whether he actually is.

Anyway, in French a bit of German and the ever present English this is an understated gem that will bring much reward to any who should seek it out – recommended.

This is the first of the half dozen films Mia Hansen-Love has made that I have seen and I'm impressed. Helped enormously by the powerful and ever convincing central performance of the wonderful Isabelle Huppert, this is a slight but affecting movie. Thoughtful and thought provoking we are introduced to philosophy teacher Huppert who has a deft and loving touch when involved with her pupils and her more conservative and plodding, though not unlikeable, husband. Beautifully shot, the film floats rather than dwells upon the importance or otherwise of philosophy in one's life, the nature of politics and youthful rebellion and with the assuredness of director and lead actress nothing really perturbs even though there are potentially disturbing upsets along the way. There were a couple of instances that made me sit up and were possibly only included to help propel the film forward for in themselves they seemed most unlikely events. There is a stranger who gropes at Huppert in a cinema, follows her wench she changes seats and even onto the street where he kisses her fully against a wall. Does this really happen in Paris? Towards the end both Huppert and husband take it in turns to hold their daughter's new born baby each declaring it looks like them. Surely throughout the world the claim is by the parents that the child looks like the mother and by the mother that it may look like her parents. These two moments seem more vivid and inappropriate because the rest of the film is so placid but possibly their greater significance was lost on me. Very enjoyable little film nonetheless.

"Things to Come" (2016 release from France; original title "L'Avenir" (The Future); 100 min.) brings the story of Nathalie, As the movie opens, we see Nathalie and her family visiting the burial site of Chateaubriand at St. Malo in Brittany. We then go to "Some Years Later", and Nathalie and her husband Heinz, both lyceum teachers, are dealing with various student protests against "the reform", much to their irritation. In a parallel story, Nathalie needs to deal with her aging mother, who seemingly calls her every 5 minutes regarding an ailment (real or perceived). At this point we are 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from French writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve, best known for the excellent "Father of My Children" some years ago. Here she brings to the big screen a seemingly ordinary slice of life about a women in her late fifties, dealing with changes around her: her aging mom, issues at school, issues with her husband, issues with her schoolbook publishing company, etc. etc. No bomb explosions, no special effects, no car chases, just people interacting and living their lives. The first hour of the movie plays out in Paris, and makes day-to-day life in Paris look fantastic: mostly sunny weather, people playing in the park, people enjoying a coffee on a sidewalk terrace, etc. (Having grown up in nearby Belgium, I can assure you that in reality the weather is rarely that nice...) The rests of the movie plays out at the family's summer house in Brittany, and also in the Rhone mountains. But the very best part of the movie is of course to watch Isabelle Huppert in action. In my mind, Huppert is the European Meryl Streeo (they are about the same age), and Huppert seemingly is only getting better as she's getting older (just like Streep). Here Huppert brings the Nathalie character with a vulnerability yet an equal amount of determination. In one of her classes, she asks the students "can the established truth be debated?" Later on, she concludes that "the future is compromised".

"Things to Come" won major acclaim when it premiered at the Berlin film festival last year, and rightfully so. As it happens, Huppert released another film last year, "Elle", that won her even greater acclaim. It's tough when you're competing against yourself. "Things to Come" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati (the same theater where "Elle" is still showing, coincidentally). The Sunday matinée screening where I saw this at was packed, to my surprise. I guess the word is out that basically any film starring Isabelle Huppert is almost certainly a must-see, and that certainly is the case here. "Things to Come" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I have to admit I haven't seen any of the other films to have been directed by Mia Hansen-Love but if they are as good as "Things to Come" she will already have made her mark as one of the great directors working today, not that a great deal happens , in the conventional sense of 'cinematic action', in "Things to Come". This is simply a portrait of a woman, (Isabelle Huppert), who has settled into middle-age, neither particularly happy nor particularly unhappy. She is a teacher and writer of philosophy who uses the philosophical treatises she's always lived by to get through her largely uneventful life.

She has a dull, middle-aged husband who also teaches, two grown children and an ageing, ill mother, (Edith Scob from "Eyes Without a Face"), when suddenly her life is thrown into disarray, Nevertheless she copes, mainly due to her friendship with a younger man who was once one of her students, There is a suggestion that they might become romantically involved but it's just a hint in a film full of hints.

This is serious stuff, intellectually rigorous and yet full of humor; a film for intelligent, grown-up audiences who like to take their brains with them when they go to the pictures and Huppert, who is never off the screen, is stunningly good. Every gesture she makes, the way she walks, tells us something about this woman as much as what she says. This is great acting.

Everyone else follows suit. Roman Kolinka as Fabien, the New-Age would-be anarchist she comes to rely on, if only for company, could have been such a cliché but Kolinka brings depth and shadings to the role and makes him likable and interesting. Even Andre Marcon as the dull husband is dull in a way that makes him sympathetic rather than a figure of fun.

By now you might have realized that I loved this film as much as any I've seen this year. Is it a masterpiece? Probably not. In the end it's gossamer thin but it is also a gem, a beautiful uncut diamond of a movie. See it at all costs.

"Things to Come" is centered around Nathalie, a philosophy teacher, and while the film does touch on philosophical elements, the focus is on Nathalie's personal life and her own fears and thoughts about her slowly disintegrating personal relationships.

She has her husband Heinz, two children, a mother on the verge of death who constantly needs her attention, and a previous student that she now has a sort of mother-son relationship with. The film starts with Nathalie, Heinz, and their children visiting a grave of a French author, and then cuts to several years later when Nathalie is called by her dying mother because she is "having a panic attack", although it seems she's done this before and simply wants to force her daughter to give her company. Soon after she is confronted by young protesters on the way to work. They are angry about something having to do with their future retirement. From the start, this film shows that it is about a fear of the future: fear of death, fear of loneliness, fear of old age.

Soon it is revealed that Heinz is having an affair, and he is told by his children that he must choose between her and his wife. He tells his wife that he chose the other woman. She desperately addressed the news with "I thought you would love me forever".

From here, she begins to realize her aging is happening faster than she has realized as her personal relationships and desires begin to fade away slowly and subtly until she is left with nothing but a cat, until she finally accepts her aging and lets go of that as well. The character becomes conflicted, and Isabelle Huppert conveys this repressed regret and fear perfectly. She doesn't want to care about her husband's affair, and she wants to be satisfied with what she has accomplished, but her dreams of the future seem to be destroyed, as each of those she loves begins to let her down. She even tries to fill the whole left by her husband through another relationship, but she no longer has the will or desire. In a great shot, the screen fades to black as she opens the blinds, showing the reality of her loneliness. She begins to lose hope.

Her mother's death marks the disappearance of the one person in her life who still needed her. Her mother's life was revealed to be full of suffering and lost love, but Nathalie was the one thing in her life that she could be proud of, and now Nathalie has taken her place.

As extreme as this sounds in my description, the film itself is very subtle, and relies heavily on Huppert's performance, to great effect.

While "Things to Come" is a solemn, emotional film with themes that are upsetting and relatable for everyone, there is hope in the end. Through the newborn baby, there is hope, potential, and desire, and that is what is important. That is what we need to continue in life, even if the reality doesn't live up to the desire.