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Dec 02, 2016 By Jason Wilson Web Exclusive

Taking the title Things to Come into consideration with the film’s subject matter, it may seem like a foreboding warning of the futures that await us all. Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) hits a series of crises within the first quarter of Mia Hansen Love’s new film. Students at the school where Nathalie teaches philosophy are protesting for their future earnings and what crumbs are being left for them by the older generation. Her publisher is making changes to the textbook she worked on for years so the new edition is more “modern,” and she hates it. Her husband is seeing another woman. Her aging mother calls in a panic multiple times per week, eventually needing to be hospitalized for her own protection and to prevent her from calling the fire department (no, not the ambulance) when she is in distress.

To some, this may seem overboard as her suffering is piled on in heaps without any reprieve. Add into this her former favourite student re-enters her life and alternates between admiration, frustration and condescension relative to their philosophical differences. Perhaps in the hands of another director, this amount of pain would feel oppressive, if not void of artistic merit (provocateurs Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke seem to toe this line, often maintaining high art amidst the misery) but Hansen-Love is able to tell this story without dwelling on Nathalie’s streak of misfortune or playing the evil puppetmaster testing the subjects of a narrative for the sake of amusement.

It’s almost all due to Huppert’s performance. She keeps a subtle tone, never swinging for the fences. Instead, she reacts and ponders and lays still. Nathalie keeps moving because there is no other choice appealing to her sensibilities. Her problems do nearly push the boundary of believability at times – specifically in a sequence that begins at a movie theatre – but Hansen-Love wisely moves away from it. The most resonant theme is that of aging, and not simply the aging of self but of those around you from parents to children to partners or students. Nathalie may be getting older, but her mother is practically decomposing while alive, refusing to eat at one point. This kind of scenario could conceivably hit very close to home. Without swells of a manipulative score, Things to Come allows a freer sense of navigation through these scenes and how to consider the themes. It will mean different things for different people, and for some it will definitely fall flat or feel foreign and off-putting. Some may disagree and even feel it does lay on the pain a little too thick.

Still, Things to Come is a quiet and reflective piece worth a contemplative look. And it isn’t as foreboding as it initially seems, because there remains joy through healing. There is compromise. While the horizon may often seem stormy, the clouds will soon part if only for a few moments.

www.ifcfilms.com/films/things-to-come

Author rating: 7.5/10