The Future

I can’t help but feel that The Future falls into a certain category of cinema that demands a great deal of respect, a genre to which I am constantly drawn, one that sets The Future along Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep: a clearly autobiographical story given surrealist treatment, but which manages to make more sense and feel more hand-crafted than Fellini’s 8½. Like all great art, work borne of deep personal connection may speak more softly than others, but is often worth the experience.

Like the Escher painting hanging on the wall in The Future, Miranda July’s second full-length film is entirely surreal and vaguely dizzying. Trying to decipher it sends you in circles and the ability to truly appreciate it is highly subjective. The Future, like the future, is many things. It is hopeful but realistic, it is authentic but staged, an ode to commitment-phobia and the ticking of biological clocks. Factor in loneliness and heartbreak, and the feeling of creative paralysis… or perhaps this last is merely my recognition of the film’s genesis in performance art – a polarizing if unique art form.

Jason (Hamish Linklater) and Sophie (Miranda July) plan to adopt a stray cat in a month, when his cast is removed. Their terror of the impending responsibility collides with their dreams of their future. Suddenly their lives are constricted by a thirty day deadline that inspires an identity crisis in both Jason and Sophie.

The Future has its moments, and I wonder if it wouldn’t have been more satisfying as a short film, or a series of short films. Even an episodic structure would have been preferable to the messy and unclear narrative July has chosen. The surreal aspects of the film are the most beautiful and evocative, and the inclusion of Pawpaw, the stray cat as personified by two paws (one in a cast, obviously) voiced by writer/director/star July, is one of the film’s highlights. The other is the dialog between Jason and the moon. Linklater is completely endearing and a little sad as Jason, the perfect physical counterpart to July’s Sophie.

But what are we supposed to take away from the film? One thing is for certain, and that is an uncertainty about The Future.