Review of The Future (2011) by Kevin M — 08 Aug 2011

Another recent user review said "Almost as good as her last film" and I think you'll hear a lot of that.

While the film does get better as it progresses (which is much better than getting worse), I found little to endear me to the characters aside from them being quirky and cute. Maybe I just don't live in the rarefied world of Miranda July, but it's hard to understand a couple simultaneously quitting their jobs during the worst economy and unemployment in decades with no other plan than to be free to be quirky more often.

I think it's fine to ask an audience to forget about reality in many art forms but when you're making a film that simulates reality and is intimate and immediate, I want to be able to relate to the way the characters think and the choices they make and I just couldn't. That said, there are enough great ideas floating around to make the film compelling at times and worth watching if you can perhaps imagine it set during the dotcom boom and that these characters have huge savings or incredibly low rents (and not set in modern LA).