(4/5)
For some reason it’s difficult to believe that The Future is only Miranda July’s second feature, and that it’s been six years since her previous one, Me and You and Everyone We Know. That film gathered huge success on the festival circuit and among indie film audiences with its particular brand of twee quirkiness – a quirkiness that fits in with the Sundance crowd but rings a little truer, a little deeper. She’s been busy with short films, performance art, short stories, and spoken word recordings in between, and even though I haven’t seen or heard a whole lot of that work, you can feel it in this film. It feels like an organic outgrowth of July as a writer and performer; not like a long-overdue follow-up to a successful film but merely the way this particular story needed to express itself, so she made a film rather than a book or a performance piece. Because though it would be easy for naysayers to dismiss July as merely quirky, she’s tapping into some very real and meaningful places in the lives of the now thirty-something middle-class artistic-minded people she writes about and to some degree represents.
The Future begins with a narrative framing device that’s likely to offput many – it was my least favorite part of the film, though I did like much of the actual narration as written. The narrator is a cat, voiced by July in the most gratingly annoying voice she could come up with and visually represented by a pair of paws. Paw-Paw is a stray cat that July’s actual character Sophie and her boyfriend Jason rescued and are planning to adopt when he’s out of quarantine at the vet’s. But Sophie and Jason aren’t sure they’re ready for the responsibility and decide they need to do everything they always wanted to do in the thirty days before they go to pick Paw-Paw up. On the surface, it seems like a fairly silly plot, but July is deep in metaphor in this film (and will get deeper), using Paw-Paw as a catalyst to energize Sophie and Jason out of their complacency in decent but unfulfilling jobs with the realization that they’re getting into their thirties and haven’t really even started to do the things they’d always planned to to in the future.
Sophie’s attempts to counter the highly-watched YouTube videos of a teenager dancing club-style with her own project of Thirty Days Thirty Dances fails due to her inability to overcome her own self-consciousness, even though she’s a seasoned dance instructor and choreographer – putting herself out there is much more terrifying than just teaching kids. Meanwhile, Jason quits his telecommuting customer service job and joins an environmental nonprofit raising money to plant trees, but the cause turns out not to be as fulfilling as he’d hope. Both end up finding unexpected relationships through the side projects they take up; Sophie’s a little more disruptive than Jason’s, threatening their own relationship. This is the part of the film that I liked the least (tied with the voiceover narration), but it also led to one part that I liked the most – Jason’s attempt to literally stop time. It could be said to be sci-fi, but it is never explained as such, and indeed, plays much more like a very extended subjective viewpoint.
The narrative fracture this causes will be the final breaking point for anyone not invested in the film or who never bought into the premise in the first place, but even though I won’t say I fully understand it, it worked for me emotionally and thematically, especially as I’ve had time to think it over since seeing it. I might’ve had a more equivocal position on the film immediately after seeing it, but in the weeks that have passed since, it’s grown in my estimation. Turning thirty this year myself and only beginning to see some of the pieces of my life fall into place made The Future resonate with me especially well, perhaps, though I still found some elements of the film a little offputting (just as I did with Me and You and Everyone We Know), but offputting in an intriguing way that made me want to revisit the film rather than not.
It’s a bit of an uneasy film, which is intentional. July is a smart writer, and uses the superficial cuteness of her artsy characters to critique the very tweeness that most hipster films glory in. What would be adorable in a film with Zooey Deschanel is here strange and awkward, not necessarily something to celebrate, but still an integral part of the characters and story. These people could easily be pure Silver Lake stereotypes, but they have humanity and foibles and they’re lovable and idiotic and smart and egocentric and disturbing. Sophie and Jason are paralyzed by thoughts of growing old, of not getting to do the things they always wanted to do, of being stuck in jobs that they always considered temporary. That’s not so different from anyone else, but their reactions are particularized and somewhat off-kilter. It’s to July’s credit that she manages to arc the story the way she does without either losing who the characters are or our interest in them.
Director: Miranda July
Screenplay: Miranda July
Producers: Gina Kwon, Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul, Chris Stinson
Starring: Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky, Isabella Acres, Joe Putterlik
Running Time: 91 min
*Sorry for getting the Me and You of Me and You and Everyone We Know backwards! I do that all the time and I forgot to check it this time. My bad.
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Thanks, I get that backwards every time. I’ll fix it when I get back to a computer.
EDIT: Fixed.
Still a great review. Excited and looking forward to it.
Ok, so not a huge fan of this film. BUT. There are things to like about it and I find my appreciation growing with each passing hour. It felt like David Lynch and Todd Solondz sitting on Noah Baumbach’s shoulders as they walk to Sundance. It was much darker than I had anticipated. This has got to be one of the most depressing movies screened in a long time. It’s got some funny moments in the beginning, but there’s this weird bi-polar presence to July’s work.
Mostly I was just uncomfortable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case I wasn’t all that emotionally invested in the characters so the uncomfortableness of the experience was not out of care, it was more out of not caring… if that makes any sense.
Some of the ideas were great. I do agree with pretty much everything in your review Jandy, I just liked it less than you did. She’s got one hell of a dismal view of the world. The title is probably the most depressing thing about the entire film.
I kind of felt the same as you, Andrew, right after I saw it. That’s one reason I didn’t review it during LAFF – I felt like there was more to get out of it than I did immediately. Thinking back about it now probably improved my star rating by a half star at least. But you’d say you definitely liked it a lot less than Me and You and Everyone We Know, then? As I recall, you love that film. Neither film sits with me perfectly well, but I felt like the reasons that The Future didn’t sit well with me are more intentional, if that makes sense. I feel like I SHOULD like You and Me more than I do, but I feel like the reaction I had to The Future was precisely what she was going for. And that somehow made me like it better.
Oh yeah I enjoy MAYAEWK a lot more than this. But like you said, that could be the intent. Me and You is simply more fun and lighthearted. This is clearly dark and offensive.
Few films do I wish I had seen the Q&A with writer/director. I had the opportunity for this film a couple of months ago and missed it.
I have an embarrassing question: What exactly is a hipster?
I’ve heard friends and random people talk about “hipsters” and I still don’t get what they are; I’m too “scared” to ask them. Someone referenced Pabst Blue Ribbon in defining hipsters and the picture in my head was just douche bag college students who drank pabst because it’s cheap beer. Please, help me.
There’s not an exact definition, really, so don’t feel bad, Gil. Characteristics most people have in mind when they use the word: twenty/thirty-something people who pretend they’re counterculture when they’re really trendfollowers (think people who follow indie bands as if they’re the only people who’ve heard of them, but they all follow the SAME indie bands). They like things that they think are cutting edge, but only because they’re cutting edge – as soon as that band starts getting bigger success, hipsters are no longer interested. Slogans like “I listen to bands that don’t exist yet” and “I’m here for the opening band” are applied to hipsters. Descriptors like pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-artistic fit in here too, with an especial focus on pretending to desire authenticity, but actually being inauthentic and superficial. Most people who USE the word “hipster” use it in a derogatory way. Most people would never apply the word to themselves. PBR is associated with them, but I forget how that started. Honestly, I think the stereotype is far overblown and kind of outdated – most of the people/groups I consider hipster-esque (the Silver Lake district, for example) aren’t nearly as bad as what I describe above.
Hipsters drink PBR because of the irony, and because Pabst has sunk millions of dollars into a nationwide grassroots” marketing campaign about how anti-establishment they are, and hipsters lap that kind of corporate bullshit right up.
Hipsters are an arbitrary group of people that geeks point to as superficially fetishistic not reconizing the irony.
Lisa Simpson: Ooo, an earring! How rebellious…in a conformist kind way!
What about a hipster doofus?
Off topic, but if you can find it, check out the Russian big-budget musical called HIPSTERS which is not in any way ironic or cynical, and is a pretty damn good bit of feel-good spectacle-film making.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1239426/
You might have to import the DVD yourself, because the powers that be have failed to recognize that this film is very much worthy of distribution. (Of course, as soon as they do, and distribute the film, and it gets insanely popular enough to spawn and actual B-way musical, I’ll be back to tell you how much the film sucks..
)
Hipster stuff: Jandy’s and Jay Cheel’s music taste, The Strokes (circa 2001-2002), Scott Pilgrim (2003-2004), Miranda July, Pitchfork media, Austin, Portland, Silver Lake, Berkeley, Williamsburg, 1970′s-1990′s fashion style, ironic fashion statements, the Keith Stone commercials, the Don’t be so Mayo commercials, snoobery when it comes to the arts, living in urban areas, and etc
Antho, I do admittedly trend toward hipster tastes myself. Maybe one reason I tend to intepret the word a little less negatively than some.
The Film “Hipsters” that Kurt mentioned is indeed a lot of fun – filled with colour, solid music, a couple of great dance scenes (needed just a bit more though) and some extremely attractive Russian people. I’m also surprised it hasn’t been picked up for release – it’s full of energy and would be a fave with a number of people I know. But not many distribution companies are asking for my opinion, so take that for what it’s worth…
Antho42: GHOST WORLD.
Hipster: The fine line between bonafide snob and poseur snob.
Variation – the word “snob” could also be replaced with “artist” if you prefer.
(And it should be mentioned that the Russian film is neither of these.)