• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Donate

The Arts Fuse

Boston's Online Arts Magazine: Dance, Film, Literature, Music, Theater, and more

  • Podcasts
  • Coming Attractions
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Commentary
  • The Arts
    • Performing Arts
      • Dance
      • Music
      • Theater
    • Other
      • Books
      • Film
      • Food
      • Television
      • Visual Arts
You are here: Home / Featured / Film Review: Should We Fear Miranda July’s “Future”?

Film Review: Should We Fear Miranda July’s “Future”?

August 12, 2011 Leave a Comment

The Future, director/actor Miranda July’s followup to 2005’s Me And You and Everyone We Know is brave, unexpectedly poignant, and devastatingly sad.

The Future. Directed by Miranda July. At Kendall Square and selected theaters throughout New England.

By Maraithe Thomas

Looking for a Direction: Miranda July directs and stars in “The Future.”

What if your favorite T-shirt or blanket, the one you sleep with every night and won’t go anywhere without, followed you around like a reanimated corpse, dragging itself across the ground just to find you? And what if that T-shirt wasn’t just a T-shirt but was a representation of your soul? Well, I suppose you’d be in a Miranda July movie. Particularly, you’d be in The Future, which has not only a crawling T-shirt but a wounded feline narrator and a moon that talks; in other words, now-recognizable elements of the 37-year-old director’s work.

In the years since her debut Me and You and Everyone We Know in 2005, July has become something of a brand, say like Miracle Whip. People either love it or gag at the thought. And just like the contemporaries she is most oft-compared (i.e. Wes Anderson) people expect certain things from a new July film. These things will either send them fleeing from or flocking to the theater (the narrative kitten, “Paw Paw,” is quintessentially July). Her latest delivers by laying on the whimsy. But this time, there’s a lot more to it. The Future is brave, unexpectedly poignant, and devastatingly sad.

In the film, a duo of Los Angeles Bohemians—Sophie, a children’s dance teacher, and Jason, a work-from-home, tech support guy (played by July and Hamish Linklater)—commit to adopt that stray cat Paw-Paw, who is recovering from a wounded . . . wait for it . . . paw. Realizing they have but a month until adoption day, a.k.a. the end of their freedom, they have a hyperbolic, thirtysomething crisis and decide to live their last month to the max—“and then we can do whatever we want with the rest of our lives.” The absurdity and drama of this moment is not lost on the audience, or July for that matter.

So they quit their jobs, disconnect their Internet, and plunge into their final month. And they really go all out, as far as they know how: Jason gets a job as one of those global warming solicitors, Sophie sets out to make a expressive series of YouTube dance videos. As ridiculous as it sounds, these are the things they decide will add meaning to their lives. Jason begins spending time with an elderly man who he met after seeing an ad for a $3 hairdryer in the PennySaver (this is actually how July found the actor who played him). The man may represent, in a bit of heavy-handed symbolism, Jason in the future. The quirky self-explorations are all good-natured and fine yet obviously are set to fail on an adult level. Worse, Sophie begins an affair with an older man, and everything kind of falls apart. Time even stops moving, literally.

The cat is left to wait and wait. We know it’s waiting—and exactly how it feels about waiting—thanks to July’s ultimate touch of magical realism: it talks, in a mutated July voice, about the future and the waiting and the “inside and outside” (the film also plays with a day/night juxtaposition; printed on Sophie’s beloved shirt are the words “C’est la nuit”). The shots involving the cat show two massive paws, one bandaged of course, that appear throughout the film intermittently and are overtly ridiculous. But as Sophie and Jason drift apart to pursue their “real” endeavors, the adoption date comes, and the cat continues to wait.

This film, despite some of its eye roll-inducing moments, is a triumph for July, who, if she was looking for a spot among great current directors, has most certainly found it. She never promised to be anything to anyone, and the honesty displayed in her work is refreshing. She’s not generic, she surprises, and she’s added an aspect of originality and thrill to contemporary filmmaking. However, due to some cultural associations, July has become notorious for being, to put it kindly, not everyone’s cup of tea.

Bohos in Hell? Miranda July (Sophie) and Hamish Linklater (Jason) in “The Future.”

And just as public opinion of July is polarizing, so too will be this film. Most of the love/hate surrounding July seems to me to be about whether she is “kidding” or if she’s serious (or if she is serious ingenuously). Is she, as a New York Times feature on the director titled “Miranda July is Totally Not Kidding” (not kidding), merely the unwitting embodiment “of an aggravating boho archetype: the dreamy, young hipster whose days are filled with coffee, curios and disposable enchantments” or is she really like that?

In The Future, Sophie and Jason’s characters are clearly parodies of this type. They are the male and female versions of each other, and not just because of their matching haircuts. (But the haircuts do matter, symbolism is never too subtle with July.) Many of the opening scenes which show the couple at home are reminiscent of the merciless, Bohemian parody series “Portlandia,” which stars SNL’s Fred Armisen (whose name on the show is also Jason, just saying). The show has scenarios where a couple can’t commit to eating chicken at a restaurant until they’ve proven it’s organic, which is almost as ridiculous as a couple treating the short-term adoption of a stray cat as if they were about to have triplets. But July doesn’t just let them carry on functioning like that—she completely destroys them.

Not everyone would agree, but Sophie and Jason’s pre-crisis, understated banter was extremely pleasant to watch. Whether you feel pity, sorrow, or voyeuristic glee upon watching their fantasy world disintegrate probably depends much upon which side of the July divide you fall.

Regardless, the filmmaking is sound. The style is engaging, cute, and daring. Also worthy of note (and part of what makes the film so melancholic and lovely), the film’s soundtrack was wonderfully scored by Jon Brion (Punch-Drunk Love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) along with one Beach House song in particular that you’ll never be able to listen to again without thinking about July’s awkwardly pulsing hips.

Part of what makes July’s film so searing at its end are the same things that endear it to prospective viewers: the fact that they feel that they can, on the surface, relate to Sophie and Jason. “I’m awkward, too” or “What an adorable, made-for-each-other couple. But wait, maybe they aren’t that happy.” Maybe their lives aren’t happy in their simplicity. Maybe they’re empty and the future is cold and sad.


Maraithe Thomas is currently a copy editor and web producer at The New Yorker.

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share

By: Arts Fuse Editor Filed Under: Featured, Film, Review Tagged: American, Boho, contemporary, Film, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July, THE FUTURE

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search

Popular Posts

  • Music Review/Interview: Foxes & Fossils — 50 Million YouTube Views Can’t Be Wrong Even though they are a cover band, Foxes and Fossils' p... posted on February 1, 2021
  • Television Review: “Strip Down, Rise Up” — The Liberation of Pole Dancing An intriguing look at smashing the patriarchy through t... posted on February 1, 2021
  • Film Review: “The World to Come” — A Haunting Female Frontier Romance The excitement of these films – perhaps the word frisso... posted on February 5, 2021
  • Concert Review: Tedeschi Trucks Band — Fiery “Fireside Sessions” With the “Fireside Sessions,” Tedeschi and Trucks have... posted on February 21, 2021
  • Film Commentary: What If a Man Insinuates That a Woman Is NOT Attractive? And in Print? Variety is wrong and cowardly to give in to Cary Mullig... posted on January 31, 2021

Social

Follow us:

Follow the Conversation

  • Anonymous February 28, 2021 at 4:58 am on Film Review: Nicholas Jarecki’s “Crisis” — Death, Opioids, and Corporate GreedThanks for this clear and insightful review. So hard to find real reviews that tell you about the movie. Look...
  • Ken Field February 26, 2021 at 3:36 pm on Music Profile: Violinist, Teacher, Composer, and Arranger Mimi Rabson — Making a Life in ArtNice writing about a wonderful & important musician! Wanted to add that my composition "Sensorium", referenced above in Rabson's discography,...
  • Steve Elman February 26, 2021 at 2:40 pm on Arts Reconsideration: The 1971 Project — Celebrating a Great Year In Music (February Entry)Good catch! The phrase should have been "modal harmonies and open structures," and I've made the change in the text....
  • Kemp Harris February 26, 2021 at 10:57 am on Jazz Album Review: Kemp Harris’s “Live at The Bird SF” — An Infectious HybridHello Daniel, I cannot thank you enough for this review of my CD, "Kemp Harris/Live @ The Bird:SF" I appreciate...
  • Allen Michie February 25, 2021 at 10:27 pm on World Music Album Review: Michael Wimberly’s “Afrofuturism” — Journeying Forward Through DiversityThe gratitude is all mine! Thanks for putting together this great assembly of master musicians and letting them mix it...

Footer

  • About Us
  • Advertising/Underwriting
  • Syndication
  • Media Resources
  • Editors and Contributors

We Are

Boston’s online arts magazine since 2007. Powered by 70+ experts and writers.

Follow Us

Monthly Archives

Categories

"Use the point of your pen, not the feather." -- Jonathan Swift

Copyright © 2021 · The Arts Fuse - All Rights Reserved · Website by Stephanie Franz