Things to Come (2016)

I recommende this fascinating movie of Mia Hansen-Løve inspired in your mother life´s. I question myself why this movie was not in the Cannes? The shot is wonderfull with scenes of everyday life in Paris, in beach trip and mountain refuge (Grenoble).It´s a short movie (1h30min) which made me like it. Isabelle Huppert have a magnific actuation. However, the main character has 40 years and Huppert more than 60. Ok, this was not a problem. Sometimes the main character was a typical Frances boring, with gesture, expressions and customs that only the French understand. It reminded me a lot of my experiences in France, and that was very good. The final is very intersting followed by The Fleetwoods - Unchained Melody. I conclude that freedom must always be present in our lives, and that freedom and time can solve any problem life´s, as unemployment, love, disappointment, etc. I really liked it. My note is 7/10, but almost 8/10. R - 7/10

Nathalie Chazeaux (Isabelle Huppert) is a Parisian high-school philosophy teacher in her sixties. She seems to have an ideal family life. Her husband Heinz (André Marcon) also teaches philosophy at the same school and they have a content family life at home with their two young adult children. As the film progresses, life situations becomes less ideal for Nathalie including the mental and physical decline of her high-maintenance mother (Edith Scob).The film's beginning was fascinating. It included school protests against the current state of France; it also included a disagreement Nathalie has with a pair of marketing experts on how her book, written years ago, should be packaged to sell better. These scenes seemed to promise a critique of our modern times. While those themes more or less dissipated after the beginning, "Things to Come" remains an insightful film at other levels.Yet again, Huppert raises the film to a higher level with her talent and presence portraying a role with which many in her life situation could identify. She seems strangely cool when given bad news but her humanity (and tears) show more clearly when she is alone.This coolness is especially apparent in her final scene with Marcon. It is amazing how both seem to be having a casual conversation but there is so much bite and sadness in the subtext beneath their words. This scene is quite remarkable.Director/writer Mia Hansen-Love presents her fine story free of any flash. Sometimes, this subtlety is welcome but this movie might have used just a little more flash to heighten a few scenes. But with such a fine lead player, Hansen-Love might have found this unnecessary. The bonus is the various philosophical discussions (including talk of the events around the 1968 uprising) which Nathalie has with her husband, her classes at school, and a former prized student who now lives in an anarchist commune in the countryside.

Young actors today would do well to watch carefully and learn from this amazing woman. She's been doing it for such a long time, and for each work she is a part of is that much more memorable for what seems like such very subtle reasons. She is just spectacularly comfortable in the life of all the characters she portrays. She is unquestionably one of the finest actors to grace the screen of any age... with an unlimited, timeless grace commanding any story-line she chooses. This is a very emblematic film for her, and it is oh so hard to imagine another actor that would be able to substitute in the part to give it the complexity and depth she is able to impart. It is what makes her so special, and why with every new contact I become more infatuated with her unmatched talent. She's wonderful, unequaled, and timeless.

The new release "Things to Come" is without question one of the most uninteresting, unengaging, plodding and pointless torture tests of cinematic viewing I will EVER experience in my, or ANY OTHER, lifetime.  I get that this is a slice of midlife crisis examination of a woman whose world is catastrophically crashing down all around her.  And I have appreciated the great French actress Isabelle Huppert in other star vehicles (e.g., "Home" and "The Piano Teacher").  But as talented as she is, Huppert is hopelessly lost in this pretentious mess centered around philosophy, anarchy and shattered relationships that tries hard, way TOO much so, in fact, to be more important and profound than the film ever manages to realize.  And trust me, I kept waiting for any manner of compelling "things to come" to actually come to pass here.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.   And...