Review
Miranda July is an artist of many crafts. She is the creative behind a number of exhibitions and art projects, the author of successful short stories book Nobody Belongs Here More Than You and directed, wrote and starred in her own hit film Me And You And Everyone We Know. July is notorious for her distinct voice that echoes through everything she does. If this voice was edible, it would taste like Marmite, as it is most definitely one that you are either going to love or hate listening to. This film is no exception.
‘The Future’ stars Miranda July and Hamish Linklater as Sophie and Jason, an offbeat Los Angeles hipster couple, who are approaching their late thirties and sharing an apartment together.
Staying faithful to her usual tone and style, the film’s narrative is almost entirely character driven, and the odd and often humorous events and circumstances we see in The Future are just tools to help expose the frailty of Sophie and Jason’s feelings, emotions and relationship together (and apart). The gist of what actually takes place is fairly straightforward. After opting to adopt a feral cat, the quirky pair (Sophie and Jason) have a month before collecting the animal to reflect on their lives, or the lack of them. The fear of becoming older and ‘loose change’ sends Sophie in particular into a frenzy of attempts to validate her existence before it’s too late.
Both actors manage to hold tightly to an extremely powerful hybrid of emotional response from their audience. ‘The Future’ goes from being both uncomfortable and somewhat thought provoking cinema, to laugh-out-loud funny viewing and finally very profound, touching and poetic dialogue between two sad and extremely lost individuals. What is captured so well is that whilst the characters’ emotions and the relationship between them is treated so artistically, unusually and with such hyperbole, the normality of the characters make it extremely easy to relate to. Of course, some of July’s filmic tangents may be too sickly sweet or quirky for quirky’s sake, but that is one of the things her loyal fan base seem to appreciate the most about her.
This is independent cinema at its finest. We don’t know what the future does in fact hold, but if there is a little more Miranda July in it, then we will be all the more happier.
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