L'Avenir

"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!

Isabelle Huppert is her usual fascinating self as a put-upon philosophy teacher stoically coping with a cheating husband, a stalker, a neurotic mother and sundry other horrors.

As a bonus the latter is played by the lovely veteran actress Edith Scob constantly on the phone to inform her of her panic attacks.

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.