Toeing the line between pretension and pleasure for all of its 91 minutes, Miranda July’s The Future ultimately emerges as a testament to original voice yelled out to the heavens, on a shoestring budget. The film grants narration from a cat as its opener before literally stopping time for a solid chunk of the third act. This kind of boldness must be met with concrete vision and purpose; July has both and rarely takes her eye off the ball.
Two 35-year olds, Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater), have been together for some time, both convinced they expected more of themselves by now. Only a month away from adopting a cat, they decide to live those 30 days as though it were their last.
What ensues is sad, redundant and charming. Sophie’s determined to jump-start a ’30 Dances 30 Days’ campaign via YouTube but can’t muster one. ‘Nobody cares anyway,’ Jason says, and she knows he’s right. That said, Jason’s no better, working for a local global-warming door-to-door awareness initiative that does nothing but aggravate elderly homeowners. Save one old widow, who Jason comes to believe is the Voice of Reason.
Of course, reason is fool’s gold and a source for much of the comedy going on here. July’s style is anchored in self-deprication, determined to present mindless observations that hold resonance within this world on display. Sophie’s cancelled the Internet in their apartment. And so the ripples spread as free time increases tenfold. No more YouTube videos to watch.
As Sophie and Jason wait for their self-expectations to mold into being, their soon-to-be-adopted cat eagerly awaits his rescue. “Life will begin,” Paw-Paw the cat tells himself, when the couple saves him from his cage. In July’s strange, wonderful world, cats and couples sit waiting for something to start, positioning themselves for disappointment.
Thankfully, the whimsical tone of the future in The Future constantly comes back to the sweet within the bitter. July, as an actress, has a charm she even describes on screen as “almost pretty.” “Every person I meet, it’s up to me to sway them one way or the other,” she says in regards to her looks. Linklater has a few nice moments of his own and neither overplay their hand. The same cannot be said of David Warshofsky‘s Marshall, the middle-aged hitch in the machine that is Sophie and Jason. He feels both wasted and overused, an odd, perverse character that deserves one or two strange scenes, not half of the movie.
July, however, doesn’t let the film get away from her, offering an especially mesmerizing final sequence. Finding a new way to sing a heartbreak love song is no small feat. Bravo.
Do you like July’s work? Have you seen Me And You And Everyone We Know?