Strong and Moving!

Excellent but underrated film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The French film L'avenir was shown in the U.S. with the title Things to Come (2016). It was written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve.The movie stars Isabelle Huppert as Nathalie Chazeaux, a gifted philosophy professor and textbook author. She has an happy life, with a loving husband and two loving children. She has a burden as well--her mother suffers from dementia, and will soon have to be placed in a nursing home. In a matter of days, things start to turn sour for Nathalie, and that's where the plot begins.The plot takes Nathalie from her beautiful home in Paris, to a vacation home in Brittany, to a rural farming commune. Each of these locations is beautifully photographed. Because of the wonderful scenery, the movie will work better on a large screen. (We saw it at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY.) Still, it's such a superb film, that if you can't see it in a theater, see it on the small screen.All the supporting actors do a good job, and each is believable. However, all of them could be interchanged with other actors who have same level of ability. No one could replace Huppert. She is so talented, intelligent, attractive, and graceful that she was made to play this role. Without her, the movie might not work. With her, it's masterful. This film is too good to miss!P.S. The only other actor to match Huppert's level of talent and grace is Pandora, the cat. Pandora is old, and she has been pampered, but when she needs to catch a mouse, she catches a mouse.

If this movie could have lived up to all of the ideas it flirts with and all of the things it proposes, it could have been a masterpiece. But it didn't, so it isn't. But, look, I actually don't care so much. Why not? Because Isabelle Huppert is incredible. I don't really follow actors much. I'm more of a classic "Auteurist", trained by Sarris' American Cinema. But Isabelle...She is a phenomenon. You can feel her intelligence in every shot; you can feel her thinking. And she maintains a remarkable girlishness, even in her sixties. Isabelle...OK, enough of that!But a film which engages with the desperate search for new paradigms of Resistance and Revolution...A film which brings in a Zizek reference right on cue, in a non - name dropping kind of way. This is a film which matters - or which could matter, if the look was not so French Lifetime Channel. I mean, I know I'm showing my age if I say that I would like a film which engages with ideas to also engage with them on the level of Film Grammar. I mean, Adorno's Minima Moralia (referenced several times) is Adorno for Beginners - the film coulda reflected that work on some kind of structural level, at least a LITTLE bit, without losing the audience. At least I think so! Or hope so...I would've hoped for something on the level of Godard's La Chinoise, but the film is closer to Tanner's Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. But, for 2016, that's pretty good...pretty good. Anyway, it's hip for French directors to turn their backs on Godard now - I heard Desplechin announce (with pride) that he had moved from Godard to Truffaut. Well, if My Golden Years is any indication, it's not a good move...Things to Come is not a great film. But it is filled with lots of Little Beauties. I loved the Woody Guthrie scene. Especially how actor Roman Kolinka really nails Woody's nuances, albeit with a Gallic lilt. All of the references - literary, musical - are note - perfect and done with excellent taste. But - (Tl;dr) - all this really proves is that French Middlebrow Culture is closer to Highbrow Culture than American Middlebrow Culture is.

The pace of the film is very slow and at times boring. The story is slow to appear and the ending is unsatisfactory. There were some discussions of philosophy which I found murky. The acting and casting seems fine. The plot is that of a middle aged woman who's husband leaves her for a younger woman. She seems not to suspect anything beforehand and we see some of her emotional response. The depiction of the lifestyle of an intellectual family in Paris is interesting but the lives of the two children are poorly developed which, I imagine, is purposeful. The director seems to want a laser focus on the main character, Isabel Hubert. She is a fine actress and plays the part with style.Overall, it is just not enough of a plot, not enough action, to keep the interest of the viewer. I wish we could see more french films here in the USA since I'm a fan of french cinema, in general.

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.