Things To Come | Mia Hansen-Løve | NYFF 2016
Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) is a well respect philosophy professor at a University and has released a popular philosophy textbook. Her home life with her husband Heinz (André Marcon), a fellow professor seems all fine and well, and they have a good natured relationship with their kids who still come to visit them for dinner.
What seems like a normal and stable life is turned upside down for Nathalie when Heinz drops the bombshell that he’s been having an affair and is leaving Nathalie to move in with her, just like that. The suddenness and the frankness of this bit of news was as blunt as you could be, and one would expect someone in Nathalie’s position to freak out with a screaming match ensue. But this isn’t most films and French director Mia Hansen-Løve isn’t most directors.
Hansen-Løve, who also wrote the script, shows us Nathalie process this shocking and utterly devastating news out loud almost to herself, nearly ignorng Heinz before they have a calm discussion and he leaves. Soon it does hit her, but it’s not in the overly dramatic way that you’d see it ultimately go down if this was a Hollywood drama. Slowly but surely it takes a toll on her in the following days, especially when you throw in the fact that her aging mother Yvette (Edith Scob) is no longer able to take care of herself. She takes comfort it the little things like the teaching of her class, or the relationship with her former student Fabien (Roman Kolinka), which seems to be taking some interesting terms both before and after all of this goes down.
The gentle and gracious approach by Hansen-Løve is utterly refreshing and a nice change of pace as it feels in-tune to real life and the simplicity speaks the volumes that an overplayed hand never could. This is in large part to the mesmerizing performance from the great Isabelle Huppert who delivers a knockout performance that feeds on subtlety and thoughtfulness, finding something much deeper in the unsaid moments such as a look or a reaction, rather than the spoken word.
Things To Come feels like it’s all playing out in real time, with a pace that can go in different directions, adjusting to the life events as they occur to Nathalie. The fact that she is a philosophy major isn’t a coincidence, there’s a lot of philosophical tones to the film that comes across as natural as can be, and more often than not, poetic within itself. While sometimes you may feel that it’s a bit too slow or that this style can leave you feeling disconnected, there is something refreshing about it at the same time.
It’s the little moments like Nathalie having a good cry on a bus ride after a trying day, and somehow coming across her husband with his mistress. Even she can find appreciation in the ridiculousness and the pure chance of it all, and the cry turns into pure uninhibited laughter. Life is funny like that sometimes and the fact that Hansen-Løve is so able to capture these moments so vividly is a true triumph in itself.
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