Review of "The Future"
Miranda July may be a bit too weird for her own good. On the other hand, it is a glorious weird.
In "The Future," July's second film (following 2005's superb "Me and You and Everyone We Know"), July does a dance in an upside-down T-shirt; she voices a damaged cat who serves as the film's narrator; she has the moon in a speaking part; and she has a little girl digging her own apparent grave in a backyard.
With all these odd images and characters you might think "The Future" would be outsized and loud; instead it is small, contained and subtle. It's oddball, yes, but it is everyday oddball.
And it's a whole lot like genius.
July plays Sophie, girlfriend of Jason (Hamish Linklater). They live in a funky Los Angeles apartment; he works in tech support, she teaches dance to kids, they're both shooting toward 40 and worried about it.
As the film begins, they're adopting a cat with renal failure. They figure it may live six months, but then they're told it could hang on for five years. Suddenly, the commitment-phobes are cementing their future.
But the cat can't come home for 30 days. They have that much time left before they're tied down by a pet's life. What will they do?
July is dealing with the precarious balance between responsibility and desire, between standing strong and running wild, while throwing in all sorts of related and unrelated musings and images about beauty, sex, need, primal fear and love.
A well-known performance artist, July turns the film itself into a sort of performance art series as she moves far beyond standard narrative and into powerful impressionistic moments.
"The Future" is more cerebral and challenging than the lovely "Me and You;" its fear factor is palpable, its ending unsure, its spirit uneasy. Does that sound like any future you know?
In "The Future," July's second film (following 2005's superb "Me and You and Everyone We Know"), July does a dance in an upside-down T-shirt; she voices a damaged cat who serves as the film's narrator; she has the moon in a speaking part; and she has a little girl digging her own apparent grave in a backyard.
With all these odd images and characters you might think "The Future" would be outsized and loud; instead it is small, contained and subtle. It's oddball, yes, but it is everyday oddball.
And it's a whole lot like genius.
July plays Sophie, girlfriend of Jason (Hamish Linklater). They live in a funky Los Angeles apartment; he works in tech support, she teaches dance to kids, they're both shooting toward 40 and worried about it.
As the film begins, they're adopting a cat with renal failure. They figure it may live six months, but then they're told it could hang on for five years. Suddenly, the commitment-phobes are cementing their future.
But the cat can't come home for 30 days. They have that much time left before they're tied down by a pet's life. What will they do?
July is dealing with the precarious balance between responsibility and desire, between standing strong and running wild, while throwing in all sorts of related and unrelated musings and images about beauty, sex, need, primal fear and love.
A well-known performance artist, July turns the film itself into a sort of performance art series as she moves far beyond standard narrative and into powerful impressionistic moments.
"The Future" is more cerebral and challenging than the lovely "Me and You;" its fear factor is palpable, its ending unsure, its spirit uneasy. Does that sound like any future you know?
Labels: library
posted by Tom at
8:16 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home