Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Runtime: 101 minutes
A deceptive mundanity permeates Things to Come, the latest feature from France's Mia Hansen-Love. The central character, philosophy teacher Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert), undergoes a series of disruptions to her everyday life, yet Hansen-Love refuses to portray any of them as end-of-world scenarios. Though it takes place over considerably less time, Things to Come in some ways recalls Boyhood. It's not entirely a shock; like Richard Linklater, Hansen-Love is fixated on people's various relationships with time, ranging from major life events to the connective tissue that fills up everything else. Yet from the mundanity of Things to Come emerges a whisper of transcendence. The ordinary is not inflated to become something greater than it is. Instead, it's handled with a mix of sensitivity and level-headedness that leads to something warm and wise.
Like Elle, another striking vehicle for Huppert (an actress continually finding new ways to be excellent), Things to Come technically hinges on a life-altering incident. But then it pulls back and forces its protagonist to cope not by putting all of their energy towards it, but by tending to it while still moving along with all else that adult life entails. Elle, with its violent rape and hints of sadomasochism, takes the darker, naughtier route. Things to Come, meanwhile, moves gently, thought not without purpose. Nathalie's life, turned upside down by her husband's affair, proceeds without too many major detours. She still has lunch with her kids, teaches class, counsels former protege Fabien (Roman Kolinka), and deals with her increasingly senile mother (Edith Scob).
Plenty of films have been made involving middle-aged men and women reinventing themselves, but few do so with the wisdom and lack of sentimentality on display here. Following the sprawling dance music saga Eden, Hansen-Love has scaled back her narrative ambitions, and emerged as a more precise storyteller. For a film composed of scene after scene of what amounts to daily life (with a few diversions), it moves with remarkable assurance and focus. It's not exactly hypnotic, but it's gently compelling in its honesty in a way that makes you want to get lost in it all. You may not share Nathalie's age, socio-economic status, or family set up, but her experiences touch on the universal without coming across as a series of bland boxes to be ticked off.
Then again, it's hard to be too bland when you've centered your movie on Isabelle Huppert. The actress is at her softest and gentlest here (compared with her ice-queen work in films like Elle, The Piano Teacher, White Material, La Ceremonie, etc etc), but she remains as galvanizing a screen presence as ever. The ups and downs of Nathalie's life are charted with the precision of an X-Acto knife, yet there's never a moment of the performance that comes off as overly calculated. Huppert has made a career out of playing characters with whom one can empathize, but not always sympathize. In the case of Nathalie, she has both, and the scenes in which her face, a mask of severity and poise, cracks, are breathtakingly moving.
So, as Nathalie moves from one moment to the next, Hansen-Love (who also wrote the beautiful script) follows her with an easy-going refinement that's all too rare in slice-of-life dramas. Even in the film's darkest moments, Hansen-Love keeps it all thrillingly alive. People bicker, people chat, people discuss philosophy, take care of their ailing parents, and sometimes they chase after their obese house cats...such is life (incidentally, between this and Elle, 2016 has been a fantastic year for those who enjoy Isabelle Huppert sharing the screen with felines). Things to Come manages to have it both ways: it celebrates the chance for reinvention, while still placing it in the context of the vast ocean of experiences and routines that define our every day existence. You don't need to be a philosophy expert to find something worth cherishing.
Grade: A-
Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Runtime 131 minutes
Spanning three decades and featuring a fine cast of largely unknown performers, Mia Hansen-Love's fourth feature captures a musical movement in light brushstrokes rather than minute, pointillist details. The rise and semi-fall of one of French house music's eminent DJ's may seem like an overly niche story, but Eden's big canvas is more than a fictionalized music biopic. Like Olivier Assayas' Something in the Air, it's a tale of youth in revolt. This revolution, however, takes place in clubs and dance halls, and strives to work within a system to bring about something new, rather than tear down what's currently in place (make music, not molotov cocktails).
Eden takes its title from a 1992 fanzine about electronic and garage music, but it also opens in a more literal eden as well. After a night out in a party on a boat, young Paul (Felix de Givry) wanders into the nearby forest, unable to get the music he's just heard out of his head. Waking up to grey skies, he joins up with his friend Cyril (Roman Kolinka), and asks the party's DJ about a particular entrancing track. The Eden where Paul's journey begins is a place where the young teen discovers the path he'd like to set himself on. Dance music may be tempting to Paul's eager young mind, but it's hardly a forbidden fruit.
So often, the club scene is presented as a blaring, sweaty, grimy environment for coke and ecstasy dealers and their prey. But, since Eden is set at the outset of France's club movement, Hansen-Love has captured the party scenes in a less hyperbolic manner. The thudding, thumping beats of the music may blast out of the speakers and get your rib cage to tremble, but the movement of the bodies on screen is anything but extreme. The young coterie of clubbers are there to dance, talk, and simply get lost in the music. It's a communal experience as much as it is a sonic one. It's a naturalistic depiction, and Hansen-Love deserves immense credit for never deviating from this idea.
If Eden does one thing flawlessly, it's immersing the viewer in its party scenes. With the aid of an expertly-curated soundtrack (featuring more than 40 songs), the film breezes through its two hour plus runtime. Characters are constantly on the move, whether its in a rush to set up for a gig, or simply sharing a walk or cab ride home in the dark. The sharp editing from Marion Monnier keeps scenes uncluttered, and never allows the story's momentum to flag, even with the title cards that signpost how far along the film is in its story.
Like much of the music in the background, though, Eden becomes less distinct once it's over. You're left with the basic idea of certain moments, characters, and songs, without being able to point to many of them specifically. The pacing keeps the film in line with Paul's go-go-go mindset, and this certainly works on the surface. Yet as Paul starts to forget about the non-musical aspects of his life, Eden starts to forget to care about too much of the rest of the ensemble and their stories.
For starters, there's an overwhelming number of names and faces introduced and then dropped, with only a few being worth the time. Part of what made Something in the Air work so well was its ability to balance its three or four main characters with a broader ensemble. Eden sets itself up in a similar manner, but then stretches its tapestry out too far. Paul's touchy relationship with his girlfriend Louise (Pauline Etienne) is one of the few threads that actually feels as though its taken to completion. On the other hand, Cyril's involvement comes to an end far too soon, and his eventual absence robs Eden of some dramatic tension. Cyril's gradual slide into depression turns him into an intriguing semi-antagonist, but his story is promptly jettisoned once Paul and his band go to New York.
Meanwhile, characters who stick around far longer also prove to be far less interesting. Like Daft Punk, Paul's electro group Cheers is made of two DJs. Though Paul's partner in crime is present in countless scenes, his personality is just about non-existent. Indie star cameos from Greta Gerwig and Brady Corbet do little to enhance the on screen character dynamics.
Hansen-Love's script (co-written with her brother Sven, a former DJ) invites so many people into its non-stop party, but it's only a good host to a select few. By the time Eden gets to the obligatory struggle-with-drugs stage of the story, even Paul starts to feel a bit thin as the ostensible protagonist. His attraction to house/electronic/garage music is efficiently explained at the beginning, but his drive to pursue a career as a DJ is never delved into. The struggles of putting together shows, not to mention the financial toll of his career path, is barely touched upon. Whether it's the coke problem or the financial woes, the issues in Paul's life don't feel terrible pressing until they actually need to be dealt with. Hansen-Love's style is commendable and works a few small miracles, but the final scene is too distant and lacks a convincing perspective. Paul, and the rest of Eden's cast, simply aren't compelling enough to break through Eden's immense wall of sound.
Grade: B-
