Things To Come

Mia Hansen Løve continues her free-flowing brand of semi-autobiography with L’Avenir - or Things to Come. In her previous film Eden, a full scale documentation of the French 90's garage music scene, her brother was the principal muse; this time the experiences of Hansen Løve’s academic mother offer something a little less intense but every bit as engaging.

Isabelle Huppert plays a university philosophy teacher living in Paris. She lives a life in crisis: three children, a distant husband, student protests, a sick mother who calls the fire department every time she has a panic attack. Gradually these pieces fall away leaving her with what appears to be nothing, but her simple acceptance gives her a period of contemplation. Throughout the several years in which the film is set, she occupies an area outside of politics, concerned with things beyond. Her relationship with her mother is one of frustrated dedication and she refuses even to debate the protest that affects her professional life. Huppert's performance is natural, driven, confident and understated. She drifts and engages at a distance. Her husband’s unfaithfulness is dampened for her by his honesty and hough it clearly pains her she does not seem to dwell on death.