*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Blurbs: "the profoundly moving story of a fifty something woman who, after living comfortably for many years, must suddenly reinvent her life."
"a must see Festival highlight."
The title "Things to Come" is profoundly misleading. Nothing "comes" in the vacuous lives of the characters in this film.
The main character, "the fifty something woman", Nathalie is an arrogant, insensitive twit - a philosophy teacher who perambulates around her pupils in the classroom lecturing to the walls and windows, as though the classroom was empty. Her presence radiates conceit. I found these scenes in the class room particularly jarring, evoking memories of the conceited coterie of lecturers at the Melbourne Law School in the late 60's and early 70's, Gareth Evans, Ron Sackville, Marcia Neave and Cliff Pannam. What a contrast that new breed were to the older, gentle, self-effacing Harry Ford, in his lectures on Equity.
At home, Nathalie talks over the top of her husband, Heinz and her grown up daughter and son, both muted by, and resigned to, the domineering presence of their mother. She fails to hear anything Heinz tries to tell her and there is a startling lack of body language in these unemotional domestic scenes. The parents are as sterile and dull, as is their marriage, and their chosen profession of philosophy teaching. Then, there is Nathalie's mother, a manipulative monster, mercifully in the last stage of her life. More of her later.
Surprise! Surprise! Suddenly, Heinz tells Nathalie he has found "someone else" and he is leaving her. Her only response is that she had always been sure he would never leave her. In other words, she was not required to contribute anything to the marriage, and his role was to endure. The marriage had obviously been dead for years and their parting is unemotional and perfunctory. The children are unaffected by their parents' split. They are characters devoid of emotional shape, warmth or allegiance.
Nathalie's former star pupil enters on stage, expressing his gratitude for her inspiring him, to pursue a career in - surprise! surprise! - philosophy. Eventually, nothing comes of his contact with her and he disappears into the French Alps. He and some other drop-outs have purchased a house there - to commune, write and philosophise. ( There is no explanation as to how they raised the cash to buy this desirable estate.) The star pupil is a pretentious, inarticulate, lazy, pot-smoking nobody, excruciatingly dull. Temporary relief from this unpalatable character and Nathalie is provided, in sweeping vistas of snow capped mountain scenery, sparkling streams and waterfalls, set in virginal forests. Nathalie visits the commune, maybe in the hope her former pupil would come on to her. He doesn't. Again, nothing happens.
Beside being a horrible caricature of every day life, this film doesn't come or go anywhere. It has no continuity in narrative. Inchoate episodes prevail. For example, Nathalie is sitting in a picture theatre when a male viewer attempts to grope her. The film, unlike this one, must have been engrossing, as Nathalie merely changes seats, to enjoy the rest of the film, unmolested, as though nothing had happened. Leaving the theatre, she is followed by her assailant and assaulted again, this time in a darkened street. There is no connection in this incident to what has preceded it in the film, and nothing comes of it - nothing.
We learn of her mother's death. Suddenly, there we are, in an interview with a Catholic priest. Natalie and her daughter persuade him to celebrate a mass in memory of the unlamented, grandmother. This event beggars belief. What is an atheistic philosopher, an academic daughter of Rousseau and the French Revolution doing, beseeching a Catholic priest for a Christian farewell to her faithless mother? Worse follows. After the Catholic cathedral service, Nathalie and co. appear with grandma's coffin in a civil funeral service. Nathalie delivers an eulogy, not from the heart, but by way of a reading from Pascal's Pensees! Now - please - would anyone with an ounce of humanity or a modicum of sense inflict Pascal on a captive audience, let alone in the form of an eulogy, at a funeral. No one could be that moronic - could they?
After these assaults on credibility, the film introduces the one real character of the film, a black cat with beautiful eyes - Pandora. A symbolic lead into a dramatic event? No, just another abstraction. The cat is an inheritance from Nathalie's mother. This black beauty wins Nathalie over, and a warm relationship develops. For the first time Nathalie responds to love; a spark of humanity flickers inside her emotionally-inert being. Alas, the spark flickers for only a moment. Pandora is sent packing to the commune in the Alps.
Nathalie has now rid herself of her husband, her mother and Pandora. She is free to get back to her books, philosophy and the eviction of the natural intuition resident in timid, young minds. No doubt, she will have contact with her children and their families, only when it suits her. No reinvention is necessary. Everything is back to normal. Actually better than before, for now she can enjoy: self obsession without hindrance. The only tears shed by her, in the film are in the company of Pandora. And she won't tell anyone about this singular emotional lapse.
Oh dear! This is a profoundly boring movie, devoid of human feeling and incontinent in narrative.
Audience reaction: An elderly lady with a walking stick, sitting in the row of seats, in front of ours, about half an hour or more, after the movie started, rose from her seat and left. "Maybe", I thought, "she is just going to the toilet". She may not have been. For, she returned a little later, with a full glass of white wine. Sensible woman! When the film ended and I was leaving in haste, I caught sight of her, asleep, with the empty glass still in her right hand. Ruefully, I admitted to myself that she had spent her time more wisely than me.
At the urinals, some minutes later, a man on my left, turned his face to me and said, "I hope you didn't see the awful movie I just saw. What a dreadful waste of effing time!" "What its name, the title?" I asked. His answer: "Things to Come".
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