Things to Come

"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.

Greetings again from the darkness. What was once a rarity is now becoming more commonplace … movies made by women about women. This latest from writer/director Mia Hansen-Love (Eden, 2014) features one of the most interesting lead characters from any film this year.

Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a philosophy professor, writer, longtime wife to Heinz (Andre Marcon), mother of two grown children, and care-taker to a depressed, slightly-dementia-stricken mother (Edith Scob) who is prone to calling for emergency workers when Nathalie doesn't answer her phone calls. The film offers no murder mystery, alien invasion or other earth-rattling event. Instead it guides us through Nathalie's process in dealing with life things that occur on a daily basis.

The genius of the film, script and character stems from the fact that Nathalie never creates drama where none exists … a rare personality trait these days. Rather than plead for mercy from the universe, she simply plows forward during what would be three personal-world-crumbling events in a lesser movie: her husband cheats and leaves her, her mother dies, and she is fired (or at least forced to move off her method) from the job she loves.

Ms. Huppert delivers yet another stellar performance (see her in this year's Elle) as Nathalie. She is an intellectual and thoughtful woman, but not necessarily the warm and cuddly type. Sure she cares for her family and inspires her students, and rather than lash out at her confessing husband, she only shows frustration when he takes a couple of her beloved books in his move out (or stuffing his flowers in the trash can). Disappointment is more obvious when her prized former-pupil Fabien (Roman Kolinka) is unable to competently debate his radical views with her … choosing instead a condescending, brusque approach designed to shut her down.

Nathalie is more shocked by her publisher's intention to "modernize" her book than by finding "The Unabomber Manifesto" on the shelf at Fabien's commune for intelligent anarchists. The politics of a particular situation has influence on nearly every scene, and Ms. Hansen-Love's script emphasizes the importance of seasoning/experience in handling life … and does a remarkable job contrasting those who have it from those who don't. Few movie soundtracks include both Woody Guthrie and Schubert, but then both fit well when the story avoids a mid-life self-discovery, and instead focuses on the realization of freedom. These are two very different things, and you'd have a difficult time finding a better look than this film offers.

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.

Until this movie I never quite got the hype for Mia Hansen-Løve. Her slice-of-life, semi- autobiographical movies seemed forgettable to me. Maybe Hansen-Løve is growing as an artist, or maybe it's just Huppert. Whatever it is, Things to Come, is a movie that's stuck in my mind, a beautiful portrait of a woman whose life is upended just as she is entering the final third of her life.

The great French actress Isabelle Huppert plays Nathalie (based on Hansen-Løve's own mother). A successful philosophy professor with two grown children, a fellow philosopher for a husband, and an ailing mother, she is comfortably settled in her life. But as the movie continues on we watch as the things that Nathalie considered so much a part of her, change, dissolve, disintegrate.

I'll admit it, I was actually initially reluctant to watch the movie because the idea of seeing a woman having everything taken away from her seemed almost too sad to bear. And yet Things to Come is a surprisingly joyful movie. Nathalie isn't an automaton, she cries as the things she once counted on as part of her life are no more, but at the same time she picks herself up, dusts herself off and goes on.