The Future
IFC Centre, August 3, 2011
Movie #53 for 2011
MIRANDA JULY (Me and You and Everyone We Know) is not for everyone. I totally get that. She is mannered, strange and idiosyncratic. And there is nowhere to hide from her in a film she wrote, directed and stars in. I quite like her - as a visual artist of the most imaginative kind, I find she has an interesting approach to narrative, character and film-making. There were certainly parts of The Future that I struggled with - characters behaving in ugly, destructive, disassociated ways - but the over-all experience of the film was extraordinary.
Sophie (July) and Jason (HAMISH LINKLATER, “The New Adventures of Old Christine”, pictured with July) are about to adopt a sick cat they have called Paw Paw. They can pick him up in a month. The commitment of this cat spins their world out of whack - they quit their half-arsed jobs and decide to live boldly for the month before Paw Paw - and responsibility - arrives. He volunteers for an environmental program selling trees door-to-door; she commits to making 30 dances in 30 days to post on YouTube. Both projects - the philanthropic and the creative - are sidelined almost immediately. Then their world gets out of whack emotionally, and then metaphysically.
The joy of the film is in the detail. July meticulously constructs a world that looks, although perhaps does not behave, like ours. She may not be for everyone, but she’s definitely for me.
