FILM REVIEW: The Future

Written/Directed By: Miranda July

Starring: Miranda July as Sophie, Hamish Linklater as Jason, David Warshofsky as Marshall

Me and You and Everyone We Know, July’s debut feature-length film, is a fearlessly original take on the indie drama. A pre-pubescent boy with an odd view of sex (“I want to poop back and forth. Forever.”), a man who sets his hand on fire to entertain his two indifferent children and a performance artist who goes to extreme measures to pursue a stranger she is convinced is her soulmate are just a few of the characters that populate her wildly idiosyncratic world. In her new film The Future, the characters too are incredibly strange. I mean, in the first half of the film, Sophie spends most of her screentime watching amateur dancers on YouTube and attempting to choreograph a genuinely atrocious-looking dance of her own. She also has a magical pet T-shirt (yes, literally, like, a yellow T-shirt named “Shirty”). Her husband, Jason, on the other hand, stops time, talks to the moon and discovers life-changing revelations in meaningless everyday encounters.

But for all its strangeness, The Future, like Me and You and Everyone We Know before it, is relatable, truthful, humane. Sophie loves Jason, but his meekness and gentleness has left her with a fuckton of pent-up sexual frustration, which she recklessly channels into an affair predicated on her desire to feel needed and wanted. She knows that there really isn’t anything wrong about her marriage, but she can’t help but accuse her husband of not wanting her the way she would like. Jason loves his wife and their “boring” life together, and accepts all of her idiosyncrasies, but so badly wishes for something extraordinary to happen that he is perpetually suspended in his own extraordinary imagination. Above all, this is a film about a couple who really do love each other (or at least, I would like to think so), but who are struggling to discover what they want in life — and don’t really know where to start but from each other.

What I find incredibly alluring about July’s films is how the supporting characters form a network of symbols and metaphors that reveals an added dimension to the psychology of the protagonists. Marshall’s daughter and Paw-Paw are Sophie’s doppelgangers of sorts; the former wades into the ‘wild’ (ironically, despite Sophie’s protests) and rediscovers the warmth of ‘tame’ shelter, while the latter dies waiting for someone else to rescue her from the cold, long nights (a metaphor for Sophie’s fear of being alone and of not being wanted). The yellow pet T-shirt acts as a reminder of Sophie’s real identity — the one unburdened and unconfused by her fears — and symbolically envelops Sophie in a painfully awkward moment of self-awakening. The old man represents Jason’s superego and guide to self-awakening, thus convinces Jason that the uncertainty and frustration he feels is merely temporary. What is wonderful too is how these characters have wonderful bursts of dialogue that are both delightful in their over-the-top dramaticism and poetic in their spot-on propheticism. In Me and You and Everyone We Know, there is this particularly awesome sequence where Peter Swersey and Sylvie are lying down on the floor in Sylvie’s room, staring up at the ceiling, and the dialogue goes something like:

Peter: I’d live up there, if I could. If there wasn’t gravity.

Sylvie: Yeah…But if you lived up there, then all this stuff, all this stuff in my room, will fall on you and crush you. And you’d die.

In The Future, there are too many moments (though not really as quotable) where the supporting characters suddenly and unexpectedly spit out lines that tear at the very core of central emotional tensions. However, what makes the dialogue in The Future rather different from Me and You and Everyone We Know is its occasional, startling, self-reflective candidness. The most heartbreaking scene in the film, I think, is when Jason freezes time at 3.14am because he is frightened of life without Sophie:

Jason: I move my hand and she’s fucking him. I know exactly what’s going to happen at 3.15. At 3.15, we aren’t going to get back in bed together. And she isn’t going to wrap her legs around my legs. And we aren’t gonna fall asleep. And then in the morning she isn’t gonna say “Hi, person” and then we aren’t gonna have another day, just an ordinary, boring day, and then we aren’t gonna have any kids, and then we aren’t gonna grow old together. And we aren’t gonna look back at our lives, because we wouldn’t even know each other. That’s what’s going to happen at 3.15.

Moments like these make the occasional impenetrability suddenly profound and meaningful. Often, life is impenetrable too, but for every nonsensical whirlwind of shit, there’s something worth celebrating and loving and looking forward to; and that’s the beauty that July really seeks to extol here.

The only major objection I have with this film is the ‘cat’ voice-overs, which I’m assuming — in its similarity to the performance art pieces featured in Me and You and Everyone We Know — is one of the performance pieces that inspired the film. The inclusion feels awkward, out of place, pretentious and unnecessary. For something that features so prominently and that takes up so much screentime, it never adds anything to the film. I understand that Paw-Paw is supposed to be a metaphor for Sophie’s ‘wild’ side waiting to be tamed, but the opening ‘cat’ sequence alone already provides adequate explanation. The film succeeds on so many levels because of its unpredictability, its over-the-top poeticism and its lovable whimsicality. The ‘cat’ scenes, however, are aimless, obvious and often, quite tiresome. There is a very fine line between genius and preciosity, and this is a rare instance where July unwittingly finds herself on the wrong side of the threshold. Still, this film is too fearless for one to be bogged down by the occasional missteps.

Ultimately, this is a major artistic leap forward for July, who completely embraces the more idiosyncratic elements of her debut and produces a magical thing that is occasionally an impenetrable mindfuck, occasionally an abstract philosophical/existential meditation, but also that is always triumphant, always gorgeous, and always resolutely original. It’s definitely not for everyone, and its in-your-face eccentricity can easily (unfortunately) be dismissed as kitsch, but if you love avant-garde arthouse films, you’ll definitely love this.

KevinScale Rating: 4.5/5

FILM REVIEW: Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats)

Written/Directed/Edited By: Xavier Dolan

Starring: Xavier Dolan as Francis, Niels Schneider as Nicolas, Monia Chokri as Marie

I plan on gushing relentlessly about this film afterwards, so I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first. Like most contemporary art films, Heartbeatsis occasionally weighed down by crowded, over-enthusiastic stylistic flourishes that sometimes border on tiresome. In the first half, slow motion is used hypnotically to hypersensualize Nicolas, the enigmatic sexual core of the film, and to underscore subtle ripples of tension that would’ve been overlooked in real-time. The excessive use of slow motion here is not only endearing in its overt poeticism, but also makes for some awesome LOL moments. In the second half, though, the use of slow motion stops being cute and starts becoming irritating, and comes across as a half-baked attempt at stylistic consistency that never succeeds at becoming more than a self-indulgent pretension. The slo-mo sex scenes are particularly aimless. The use of saturated neon lighting in the post-coital bedroom scenes immediately recalls Cam Archer’s Wild Tigers I Have Known, but while Archer knowingly uses it to create a separate space for Malcolm Stumpf’s most intimate confessions, Dolan simply uses it to make his film prettier. The script could’ve appropriated Bergman-esque candor to give these scenes more emotional weight and relevance (as they are, they don’t add much at all), but instead Dolan insists on homogenizing Heartbeats with pensive, wordless ambiguity, which is a decision that falls flat here. The use of flashing lights in the club scene when Marie and Francis are staring at a celebratory Nicolas begins too as something interesting, but the sheer excess of its application causes the scene to descend firmly into nausea territory. I mean, I really appreciated its use over the Marie/Francis stills, but it mostly just made a long, redundant scene an irritating, long, redundant one. The main plot is interspersed with various ‘confessional’ scenes (they’re hardly as intimate as Dolan would like to think), and a lot of them are excessively long and bewilderingly redundant. For example, one ‘confessor’ describes the entire Kinsey scale (wrongly, I might add), and the movie just progresses nonchalantly to the next scene. There is no punchline, no explanation, no practical use and no emotional relevance. Mostly, I’m a fan of non-explanations — but only when the script is already intelligent enough to hint at some kind of depth. In such scenes, the script is as superficial as the direction, and that’s inexcusable. Much of the film’s flaws must be attributed to Dolan; although he has much to convey and has demonstrated the ability to do so in a marvelous manner, his stylistic sensibilities are half-baked and his understanding of infatuation — which the movie depends on for its depth — is unimpressive. That said, Dolan was 19 years old when he did this film. NINETEEN. This is incredible, considering how much I like this film.

For starters, the acting here is absolutely superb. Xavier Dolan’s Francis reminds me a lot of Peter Dinklage’s Oscar-worthy turn as Finbar McBride in Thomas McCarthy’s The Station Agent, in that both of them are extremely complex, challenging creations that never reach out to the audience, and that bravely keep their emotions in check. Francis is child-like, awkward, self-aware and needy, but he is also ridiculously adorable, stylish and confident. He is tactful enough to be reserved in his affection towards Nicolas in front of Marie, but is brimming with enough adolescent angst to be angry at himself for it. He is mature enough to know what he wants, but not mature enough to accept it when things don’t go his way. Marie is a comparatively accessible character; she shamelessly goes for what she wants and isn’t self-aware enough to disguise her intentions like Francis. She is comically prudish, and wears pearls and vintage dresses for extra class cred, but isn’t actually classy enough to hold up her dignity like she can her immaculate hair bun. Niels Schneider’s Nicolas, who is casual, confident, cultured and effortlessly sexy, is a stunning exercise in subtlety. There are so many scenes when Nicolas could’ve potentially become an arrogant asshole, but Schneider takes care to never cross that threshold. Throughout the entire film, and even after he nonchalantly ‘breaks up’ with Marie and Francis, Nicolas is always sympathetic and always loveable. That’s an incredible feat for an actor. Anne Dorval, who makes a particularly memorable cameo as Nicolas’ bohemian mother, is quite magnificent too. She curses, flirts, leaps from self-conscious pity to casual abandon, and offers a brief peek into uncharted depth, all in the span of under 3 minutes. Her lines, to Dolan’s credit, are jaw-droppingly incredible. While Viola Davis’ similarly short cameo in Doubt had her spew out unmemorable lines in a memorable way, Dorval spits out excellent turns of phrases that are so inadvertently, insidiously powerful that they linger in the corners of Francis’ mind until the near-end of the film.

But enough about the acting; can we just talk about the magnificence of Xavier Dolan’s direction? The sheer range of his influences is incredible — and made even more impressive by his age. His predilection for dramatic romanticization harkens back to indie Gus Van Sant circa My Own Private Idaho, his employment of music and wordless ambiguity is derivative of Sofia Coppola, his inventive use of the camera is an obvious product of watching Jean-Luc Godard films, and his use of saturated colours reeks of Pedro Almodovar. AND HE’S ONLY NINETEEN. *swoon*

One of my favourite scenes is the one where where Nicolas and Francis laugh at Marie’s retirement after they flirt over marshmallows, not least because its use of dramatic irony is utterly stunning. Nicolas laughs because of Marie’s prudishness, and Francis laughs because of her jealousy; but in that moment when they’re laughing together, the reasons don’t matter — what matters is that their laughter functions as an assertion of solidarity. Meanwhile, the audience laughs because of the tentative awkwardness in Francis’ laughter. Towards the end of the film, we realize an even bigger irony that makes our initial reaction to this scene seem silly. SO MUCH GOING ON — and I think this scene pretty much sums up what I love about this film. Dolan employs simple, often even cliché film elements, and uses them as springboards to explore the inherent tensions and assumptions in relationships, bestowing them with new depth and significance. And while his scenes don’t actually provide any groundbreaking insights into human nature, they do much to expose the absurdity of our desires and the distorting lens through which we gawk at the subject of our infatuations. It’s not a particularly deep move on Dolan’s part, but it does make for good entertainment with an added dimension of satisfactory depth. I mean, I do appreciate films that are intellectual in both execution and content (RE: Certified Copy, The Silence), but such films are often solemn and inaccessible, and descend (for some) too much into philosophical meditation, and rarely provide as much fun as Dolan does here.

There have been many accusations directed at Heartbeats about its unoriginality, especially since many artsy gay male filmmakers (yes, Dolan is gay) tend to incorporate a similar brand of narrative disjunction, stylistic beauty and surrealist excess into films about sexuality and love. Of course, Dolan by far seems to be the most promising, but he is undoubtedly in the line of a genre with distinct conventions, and some are bound to find Heartbeats an uninspired rehash of pre-established conventions. I have much to say about this, because I think Dolan’s use of clichés is deliberate and self-knowing. Wild Tigers I Have Known, an extremely similar film, incorporates incoherent, near-irrelevant pixellated shots of children swimming and close-ups of tigers, mostly because it looks pretty and fills up space. Heartbeats, on the other hand, never once feels incoherent. It takes arthouse clichés and gives them meaning; it takes empty stylistic flourishes and fills them up with unrequited longing. This, of course, is supposed to be a parallel to how Heartbeats as a movie exposes and explores relationship dynamics. To be fair, I don’t think Dolan does all this very well, but I attribute this inadequacy to Dolan’s hitherto inability to harness his true potential, rather than to his general inadequacy as a filmmaker. Perhaps I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps my doing so is premature and unjustified, but the self-parodying highs of this film are much too brilliant for me to think that I’m underestimating his intelligence.

A lot of criticism has also been directed towards the superficiality of the characters and plot premise, although I think the former exists mostly only because critics tend to be dissatisfied with characters that don’t smother us in their personality and troubles. Francis and Marie are both characters that never quite reach out to the audience, because they want the audience to reach out to them. The protagonists of Thomas McCarthy’s The Visitor and Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere are both equally emotionally stunted, and critics have lashed out at them too for it — but their introverted lack of expression does not in any way mean that they don’t feel and think as we do. Just because there is no confrontational, confessional scene where they divulge every inch of their composition, does not mean that they have no depth. In Heartbeats, character depth is something that is explored (albeit tangentially) by subtleties in the actors’ facial expressions and in the insidiously powerful scriptwriting, even if this is not particularly apparent. Moving on. I can’t defend the weakness of the premise, but I do think that Heartbeats exemplifies how a film with an awful premise, if well-executed, can still be a good one. I too was skeptical about a film revolving around a love triangle, but Heartbeats is poetic, sensitive, delicate and witty enough to make an impact.

Generally, I’m quite skeptical towards new queer cinema, because the films produced are almost always excessively campy, self-indulgent and aimlessly outlandish (RE: Wild Tigers I Have Known, Were The World Mine, Shortbus). Dolan too occasionally has moments of excess, but he also has a rare (for gay male filmmakers) appreciation for subtlety and depth. Here’s hoping he’ll move forward in an appropriate direction and make new queer cinema something worth caring about.

KevinScale Rating: 4/5