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Film reviews

Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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The Future (Film)

by Julain Wood | November 14, 2011 13:20 | Edited November 14, 2011 13:23

With Miranda July displaying the same charmingly quirky persona evident in her feature debut, her follow-up proves slightly derivative but nevertheless engaging.

In The Future, performance artist/ actress/ writer/ director, Miranda July, is her usual self - a cute, gangling figure with a mass of curly black hair falling over her handsome aquiline face. In the follow up to her breakout 2005 indie debut, Me, You And Everyone We Know, she has also found a boyfriend, Jason (Hamish Linklater), who also has a mop of long black curly hair, and even talks a bit like her. The two artistic yuppies have a pet cat called Paw Paw, and July uses the device of having the cat "speak" funny little cat observations (July also voices the cat) about its quarrelling owners. Sophie and Jason are thinking about splitting up, but they're worried about who is going to look after their new cat. Er, that's about it.

 

If all this sounds rather inconsequential, it is. After the film has ended, you would be hard pressed to say what had actually happened, but that's beside the point. It's all in the language and the feel. July is trying to capture - in her own rather fey way - the everyday anxieties of the modern American urbanite. July's debut, Me, You And Everyone We Know, was fresh and truthful rather than just quirky, and garnered her a small legion of devoted fans. With the follow up, one suspects that Miranda July is going to make the same film over and over - always starring her as the kind but diffident, highly individualistic (even solipsistic) artistic type. Well, making essentially the same film a zillion times worked for Woody Allen. It's not clear if July is in quite the same class, but she has an authentic sense of herself as the project of her life and, if you are in the right mood, she can be very engaging.