Emanated from a piece of performance art, US indie scenester and filmmaker Miranda July’s sophomoric feature THE FUTURE (her third one KAJILIONAIRE would arrive 9 years later in 2020) adopts a cosmic conceit of warped time to dissect a quotidian relationship in disengagement, but once that move is done, July fails to conjure up anything even remotely droll or profound like her flash-in-the-pan debut ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (2005).
An L.A.-dwelling, mid-30s couple Sophie and Jason (July and Linklater), decide to adopt an injured stray cat, it takes one month before the cat can be fully recuperated and assigned to their care. So during the holding pattern, emboldened by the pending new perspective (the cat is obvious a dry run of a baby, and the film is concatenated through a warped feline voiceover, as if it were a stillborn narrating its own sad destiny), they both quit their routine jobs (she is a children’s dance teacher and he is a tech support), and embrace something more meaningful or challenging, to prepare entering another phase of life that means a point of no return to hem, but that preparedness becomes ever so elusive and a disillusioned Sophie begins an affair with an elder widower Marshall (Warshofsky).
The time-warping part is fantasticated right before Sophie’s intending confession as Jason refuses her to do so by squarely stopping the time, and in a paralleled universe, Sophie vividly experiences her new bourgeois life with Marshall, until she is jolted back to her past by the presence of “shirty”, her favorite mustard t-shirt now becomes an ambulatory costume and creepily slithers into her bedroom.
After Jason sets the time back to normal (thanks to the instruction with a talkative moon), Sophie returns to their apartment, what awaits them is either a reconciliation or a final goodbye.
The signs of their 4-year co-dependency’s unraveling are shown earlier on where familiarity is normalized and ossifies their co-habitation (Jason can’t be arsed to get up and fetch a glass of water to Sophie, small gesture always divulges deep fissure underneath), and the temporal trick is tacitly previewed as a mischief that presages the later sea change.
All quirks but no sparks, THE FUTURE is middle-of-the-road among fringe filmmaking, an innovative brainwave could rarely be expanded into a feature-length corker without proper appurtenances, July’s fey spirit continues, but THE FUTURE is half-baked and fizzles out with a whimper.
referential entries: July’s ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW (2005, 8.6/10); Noah Baumbach’s FRANCES HA (2012, 6.6/10).
这是喜欢的人分享给我看的电影。整部影片沉闷得略显无聊,断断续续的还是看完了。苏菲和杰森每天都在小公寓里网上冲浪,但这样平淡的日子并没有给到他们足够的安全感,于是他们决定领养一只猫咪Paw Paw,决定给自己一团死水的生活带来不同,在领养的前一个月里,苏菲想要每天创作一只舞蹈上传到Youtube,杰森每天卖树苗,Paw Paw则每天期待着新主人。
想象很美好,现实很残酷。苏菲一直都没能开始自己的30天计划,她发现开始是一件那么困难的事情,于是她把寻找生活的激情这个目标寄托到了婚外情上。苏菲向杰森坦白这件事时杰森的反应很有意思。他不敢面对,于是寻求外部的帮助,他和窗外的月亮对话,希望月亮可以帮自己做出决定,他以为只有他的手不放开,苏菲就不会离开,但他又清楚的知道3:15之后他们就结束了。这一段看得很是心疼杰森,当所爱之人的心已不再属于自己,或许不要勉强才是对的吧。
全剧能引起我关注的只有猫咪Paw Paw的独白,让我心疼又无奈。我想到了丹,之前她想养一只猫,我以为她是喜欢猫,虽然也有这方面的原因,但忽然想到或许她早已察觉到我们之间的感情出现了问题,于是想要养只猫咪来加深我们之间的纽带,这件事的潜台词就是“让我们重新找回爱,生活才刚刚开始,都会好起来的”。
我们总在计划着将来,总在宽慰着说,如果对生活感到厌倦了,那么就去找点新的事情做,比如养一只猫。可一旦实施起来才发现困难重重,生活才刚刚开始,却猝不及防的结束。外部的时间总是在延续的,朋友们怀孕生子老去,我们却总是像苏菲一样停在开始的前一秒。
如果硬要总结,那还是属于诡异小清新,超现实的叙事方法,讲述最普通的爱情故事。很有文艺青年范儿,让一只猫咪来带动故事发展也很有趣。台词幽默可爱,很多静止的镜头也很有感呢~有幸见到米兰达·裘莱本人,漂亮优雅又幽默,好赞~@IFC
Living is just a beginning
看到我好不開心,好不開心,眼淚一直流不停的。
and so it seems that we have met before,and that we laughed before,also loved before,but who knows where or when. 將來,不要再自己演了吧。
一只猫。两个人。神经病。
最喜欢那猫,最讨厌那闷骚女
诡异的文艺电影!
两年没看过这么有智慧含量的电影了。
一對中年戀人在領養貓咪前的30天,放棄舊生活,準備迎接新人生,但一切卻不如想像簡單,失望、氣餒、膽怯、迷惘等都在兩人間埋下定時炸彈。電影穿插以貓咪視角,似乎表現情侶間疏離同貓的關聯,總之讓兩人分手複合看來各種玄乎就對了,人物心理和節奏處理上都欠流暢,後半段不知所謂。
适合细节控。如果为了故事情节的就算了。
导演Miranda July是行为艺术家,小说家,乐队乐手,电影导演,也写剧本和发唱片,大学辍学闯江湖。父母为作家和出版人。2005年在圣丹斯结识导演Mike Mills(最近作品为”Beginners“),09年结婚。July电影很有波西米亚风,时髦,古怪,机趣,很受美国年轻观众追捧。擅长处理时间、状态、日常中的幽默
米兰达·裘莱依然延续着她的私密小清新,生活的琐碎与很多非常个人化的表述。有点浪漫,又偶尔有点小幽默。不过过于个人之后,有些人很喜欢,有些人就会觉得无聊了。
主要是切合了我的时间感
喜歡
Un artiste égotiste engendre souvent de petits monstres d’ennui -ainsi le cas de Miranda July. Phénomène assez récurent chez le cinéma « indépendant » made in USA. Fraîchement factice et vain.
很简单的闲极无聊出轨的那些事,还要戴个如此文艺的套套,神经病。
猫死了。没有什么比活着更好。
2011-11-25 18:06:31 lemoncan Howfile http://howfile.com/file/2d35b415/ff4f7a1c/ http://howfile.com/file/2d35b415/0318bf9e/
这是一部在细节上很有看头的电影,服装,舞蹈,置景,堪称艺术品的各种道具,到处印着米兰达裘莱的标签,就像一场现代艺术展览。幽默的对白,活在当下的主题,小清新的气质,涉猎了太多超现实概念和职业噱头,迷人或无聊就在一线之间。★★★☆
三星;略带超现实的诡异小清新爱情文艺剧,电影更像一个片段,或者只是某一段生活的一个切面。年轻的夫妇对于生活爱情以及将来的重新选择和思考,谈不上七年之痒的婚姻困境却也有着迷茫接下来的爱情苦难。