Critics reviews

What pattern could there be when life is newly patternless? The energy is not that of a racehorse bursting out of the gates but of a river meandering down a hill, to the sea. And we will be reminded, as The Fleetwoods’s version of ‘Unchained Melody’ plays over the credits, that lonely rivers flow to the sea.

Instead of Verhoeven's baroque masculinist projections [in Elle], we have the best of Hansen-Løve's artistry – fine realistic and psychological notations that compose a complex portrait that never ceases to surprise us. In her personal plight... Nathalie is no less unflappable than Michèle, but L'Avenir presents, from the inside out, a facet of the female experience that can be related to, and, without being obvious or shocking, is a clear jewel of a film.

The results may not be instantly flooring like Hansen-Løve's previous movies were, but that seems to be deliberate. The power of THINGS TO COME exists below its placid surface, much like the heroine's rock-like resolve is belied by an oh-so-French politesse. (That's not to say the movie feels dry or boring. Hansen-Løve's mother was a professor, and you can sense the filmmaker's very personal connection to the material at every turn.)

It's like a Nancy Meyers movie written and directed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Unpretentious yet rigorously philosophical, it poses trenchant questions about willfulness, personal liberty, radical politics, and change over time within an accessible, unpredictable, casually engrossing story.

Mia is back! The narrative strategy is like Goodbye First Love – the sense of time is just flexible enough to keep the character in motion – but without the earlier film's obvious story fascination... MHL creates little surprises throughout: e.g., Pandora the cat running away in the night, then returning with a mouse; or Huppert laughing at the sight of her husband in the street with his new love. The film feels better and truer the more I ponder it.

Hansen-Løve has yet to do wrong in my book. Her writing is both delicate and fiercely direct in its point of view, and her direction has both grace and tension, sometimes contained in the same shot. Her study of an academic—Isabelle Huppert, impeccable again—facing a number of life upheavals as she wades out of middle age and into old is a marvelous depiction of how someone stays in the world even as that world seems intent on leaving her behind.

It's one of the most convincing and thoughtful character studies of an intellectual trying to reconcile her everyday, exterior life with her philosophical positions. Totally absent here are the 'Aha!' big-idea moments that normally plague films about serious intellectuals. Instead, Nathalie, as played so exquisitely by Huppert, is learning and adapting on the go, using the skills, ideas, and materials available to her to respond to difficult, but not finally insurmountable, circumstances.

My favourite MIFF "competitor", as it were, was L'avenir (Things to Come, Mia Hansen-Løve, 2016), which also featured a performance by Huppert as an older woman confronting the pains and injustices that she has become immune to, though in a more grounded context where time is measured and personal philosophy is a didactic must.

Any attempt to explain would only give away this wondrous movie's non-ending ending. It's enough to tell you that Hansen-Løve, who has an ear for movie music like almost no other young filmmaker, ends the picture with The Fleetwoods' 1959 a capella "Unchained Melody," one of the most rapturous and melancholic recordings ever made. It's unearthly in its gauzy beauty, a radio signal from a place beyond dreams.

As the title would suggest, many fresh adventures reside on the horizon for those willing and open to them. Things to Come willfully disavows normal plot points and pacing to embrace this idea. No grand victories or defeats are present, just the ebbs and flows of life that can sometimes fail to leave an impression if you aren't paying attention. This passionately suggests that most moments are worth a second glance.

Hansen-Løve has long been preoccupied by the process of mourning. Her films Father of My Children (2009) and Goodbye First Love (2011) mapped the continually switchbacking path from loss to recovery. Things to Come essentially continues that project, privileging intimately awkward moments over more overtly dramatic confrontations, but it displays an even sharper eye for verisimilar yet expressive minutiae.

Like Nathalie, Hansen-Love wants us to embrace complexity, see the world as open, not closed. In its quiet, unassuming, almost workmanlike way, this is not the movie for our scary age, but one of many, and right there on the top rung.