Berlin 2011 Review: THE FUTURE - Honest, Inventive & Dryly Funny About Relationships

rating: 4.5

Performance artist, author and director Miranda July made waves in 2005 with Me and You and Everyone We Know. It has been six years since then, but she is back and doing the festival circuit (the film also played at Sundance last month) with her new film The Future - an honest, inventive and dryly funny film about relationships and high-expectations. And it' s narrated by a terminally ill cat, as it happens. July herself stars as Sophie, an unfulfilled woman in her mid-30s who has settled for a life teaching young children to dance and who whittles away her free time on the internet. She lives with her boyfriend Jason, played by Hamish Linklater, who is at a similar place in his life, also without responsibility or a sense of purpose. In a desperate desire to fill this void, the couple decide to adopt a poorly cat who will require 24-hour care. When the cat is deemed too ill to accompany the couple home right away (they are told they can take the animal in a month) the waiting period gives rise to doubts about whether the couple are truly ready for this commitment. They soon begin to see the next month as though it is the last meaningful one in the remainder of their lives. The cat could live for five years, they are told and in five years they will be forty. Forty is as good as fifty, says Jason and anything after fifty is just "loose change". They resolve to quit their jobs and live the next month to the fullest. But in looking to the future they both lose sight of the fact that life is lived in the present and find themselves just as unsatisfied. Sophie and Jason live with the burden of the future on their minds and it hinders their ability to enjoy life or create art. Jason spends his "last" month working for a charity going door-to-door to help combat global warming. Sophie, mindful of what others are doing and what they may think of her, can't bring herself to be creative and fulfil her goal of recording a dance video for YouTube. This mad panic after what comes next is best summed up best by an old man who has been married for sixty years. Upon hearing that Jason has only been with Sophie for four years, he hits him with the idea that really their relationship has only just begun: "You're at the middle of the beginning." Shot in a sharp and colourful style not common among American independents, The Future is experimental, poetic and endlessly inventive filmmaking, with the dialogue witty and memorable - such as when July confides in her partner, "I wish I was one notch prettier. I'm on the edge of pretty, but I have to convince each new person I meet". But working hand in hand with the levity of the piece is the film's well-observed portrayal of romantic relationships. In this area The Future is every bit as moving as Blue Valentine or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with Linklater delivering a particularly effective monologue - whilst using his powers to halt the passage of time (you'd really have to watch it for that to make sense). The Future has its characters converse with the moon and the theme of love and loss is expressed via the voice-over of a cat, yet it isn't either as self-consciously "wacky" nor as pretentious as that might make it sound. It is a thoughtful and unconventional film that speaks to the head and the heart and entertains consistently along the way.