Movie Review: Things to Come

Things to Come

Directed by: Mia Hansen-Løve.

Written by: Mia Hansen-Løve.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Nathalie Chazeaux), André Marcon (Heinz), Roman Kolinka (Fabien), Édith Scob (Yvette Lavastre), Sarah Le Picard (Chloé), Solal Forte (Johann).

 

The films of Mia Hansen-Løve often feel like they are made up exclusively from those connective tissue sequences that other movies usually cut. Her latest, Things to Come, tells what is in many ways a familiar story – a woman in late middle-age has their life thrown into chaos. She has a sick, dying mother, a husband who is cheating on her – and eventually decides to leave and her career is reaching an end-point, and it’s not really the one she wanted. She is a teacher, and has a friendship with a much younger former student. She has two grown children, who she has a good relationship with, but who don’t need her anymore. Yet, while the story of Things to Come is familiar, it’s almost like Hansen-Løve uses our familiarity with the story as a way of getting out of doing the kind of kind of scenes that can drag a movie like this down. This isn’t about the emotional fireworks of dying parents and ending marriages – but about the quiet, day-to-day things in which the main character does to adjust to her new reality. And because the star of the movie is the incomparable Isabelle Huppert, Hansen-Løve is able to make a quiet, subtle film in which not a lot is said, but a lot if felt. No one does silent, subtle acting like Huppert.

Things to Come works even better when you see it around the same time as Huppert’s other brilliant 2016 performance – in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. That film does a lot – not all of which anyone can agree with – but one of the things it does is act as almost a parody of French films – indulging in the clichés of French art house cinema, to flip them. In some ways, Things to Come does something similar on a lower key level. This is, after all, about a woman who is a philosophy teacher, married to another philosophy teacher, who drops quotes during a casual dinner, and spends time at an anarchist commune, discussing revolution, authorship and other heady subjects – the type of conversations that only really happen in French movies (do they happen in real life, and I’m just hanging out with the wrong people? Is this why I never understand what the hell Godard is talking about in any of his recent movies).

 

Yet in many ways, that is just the foreground of the film – what happens, not really what it is about. Like she did in a film like Goodbye First Love, which charted the rise and fall of young love, Hansen-Løve uses audience familiarity with the setup and incidents of the movie to concentrate more on quieter scenes – scenes of Huppert walking alone in the wilderness, running to catch a train, quietly rocking her new grandchild, etc. Huppert never truly lets her feelings explode out of her – she doesn’t yell at her husband for leaving her – she clearly isn’t surprised that he’s having an affair, just that he’s actually leaving her for the other woman. When her mother finally dies, she doesn’t cry – she goes for a quiet walk by herself.

 

This is a film that needs an actress like Huppert at its core. Huppert does more with a look – a slight movement of her head, the hint of smile, than most actors do with their whole body. The camera hardly ever leaves Huppert in the course of the movie (I remember just a few moments without her) – and she carries us along through this quiet film.

 

I don’t think Things to Come is quite as good as Hansen-Løve’s last two films – 2015’s Eden was an electronic music version of Inside Llewyn Davis, which continued to grow in mind for months after seeing it, and Goodbye First Love was so sweet, without being mawkish or sentimental. Things to Come does contain a brilliant performance by Huppert though – and a subtle one. For those who think Elle is too much (and there are a lot of you), Things to Come will work as a reminder of just how brilliant Isabelle Huppert is – and that Hansen-Løve continues to be a director to watch.

Movie Review: Eden

Eden
Directed by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Written by: Mia Hansen-Løve & Sven Hansen-Løve.
Starring: Félix de Givry (Paul Vallée), Pauline Etienne (Louise), Vincent Macaigne (Arnaud), Hugo Conzelmann (Stan), Zita Hanrot (Anaïs), Roman Kolinka (Cyril), Hugo Bienvenu (Quentin), Vincent Lacoste (Thomas Bangalter), Arnaud Azoulay (Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo), Laurent Cazanave (Nico (Respect)), Paul Spera (Guillaume (Respect), Arsinée Khanjian (La mère de Paul), Juliette Lamet (La soeur de Paul), Greta Gerwig (Julia), Léa Rougeron (Théodora), Laura Smet (Margot), Golshifteh Farahani (Yasmin), Brady Corbet (Larry).

It has to be suck to love something and be really, really bad it. Those sad souls on American Idol who have somehow convinced themselves that they have talent at singing, and talk about it as if it’s their whole lives really want it – they just have no skill, so they’ll never make it. It may actually be worse to be merely good at something you love – not great enough to truly become rich and famous doing it, but good enough that you can realistically fool yourself into thinking that if you just stick with it, that perhaps your break will come. They people who are terrible give up on their dreams fairly quickly – and find something else to do. Those other people – who are good, just not quite good enough can waste years. The Coen Brothers Inside Llewyn Davis – my favorite film of the last decade or so – was about a 1960s folk singer like that – really quite good, but when Bob Dylan makes an appearance late in the movie, you know that whatever he has that makes him a star, Llewyn doesn’t have it. And now Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, about two decades in the French electronic music scene, tells a similar story. Paul (Felix de Givry) starts the movie as a teenager – sneaking out of his mother’s house to go to raves, eventually starting his own duo playing “garage” music (yes, they explain what that means, no, I still don’t know) – and spends the next 20 years trying to make it work, and never quite getting there. They are successful enough that they make some money – they can tour, they bring in crowds at clubs, etc. But once in a while another duo – known as Daft Punk – enters the movie, and we see what real success looks like – and it isn’t what Paul and his partner have. But Paul keeps plugging away it – falling deeper in debt and drug addiction, playing to smaller crowds, losing more and more friends and girlfriends, etc.

The major difference between Eden and Inside Llewyn Davis – aside from the music, which couldn’t be much more different if it tried – is the structure of the two films. Like many of the Coen’s work, Inside Llewyn Davis is well structured and thought out – whereas Eden just kind of goes with the flow of the music, sometimes losing its way as it plays things loosey-goosey. There are a lot of scenes that probably could have been shortened here or there – or even cut, as things start to repeat. But then again, I think that’s sort of the point. Like Llewyn Davis however, Paul is more than a little bit of an asshole – although he remains a sympathetic one throughout. Paul is so wrapped up in his old world, he barely notices those around him – friends disappear for a while, returning with new husbands, wives or spouses, and for Paul it barely registers. Even his own partner ends up with a wife and son in one scene – and we realize we have no idea about his personal life, or what this music means to him. Does he know it should be little more than a hobby for them? Because Paul doesn’t – he’s too wrapped up in the drugs – that cause him to miss the music he apparently loves so much. As played by Felix de Givry, Paul is one of those self-involved assholes, you still have a soft spot for. He doesn’t do anything to be mean – he just doesn’t always think things through. Really the only other character who leaves much of an impact on the film is his long-time girlfriend Louise (Pauline Etienne), a beautiful short haired woman who eventually grows tired of Paul, even if she doesn’t stop loving him. Everyone else in the movie drifts in and out of focus depending on what Paul is doing.

The film is directed by Mia Hansen-Love – who delivers on the promise shown in her last two films, Father of My Children and Goodbye First Love. Yes, the film meanders at times – and probably could have used some more editing – but for the most part, I liked the way the film drifts from one scene to the next, as it loses track of time, much as Paul does. Hansen-Love wrote the film with her brother, who based Paul on himself, but the film doesn’t really romanticize his journey, or the time he spent lost in the haze of music and drugs. Eventually even he has to leave that, and enter the real world.

DVD Review: Goodbye First Love

Goodbye First Love
Directed by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Written by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Starring: Lola Créton (Camille), Sebastian Urzendowsky (Sullivan), Magne-Håvard Brekke (Lorenz), Valérie Bonneton (La mère de Camille), Serge Renko (Le père de Camille), Özay Fecht (La mère de Sullivan), Max Ricat (Le frère de Sullivan).

Goodbye First Love is about that particular blindness that only teenage girls seem to have. When you’re a 15 year old girl in love with a handsome, slightly older boy, it seems like you are completely blind to all his faults. Camille (Lola Creton) is a stunning French beauty who is head over heels in love with Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who is 19. She’s only 15, but she spends all her time thinking about Sullivan. They argue often, he storms off often, she spends hours in her room crying, and then he comes back, his regular rakish self, and they make up all over again. Her mother doesn’t object to their relationship, but is still worried about her daughter. Why are you in love with this boy? All he does is make you cry, she asks Camille one day. “Tears of joy” is her only response. Try arguing with that.

The movie spans an eight year period, which Camille and Sullivan will mostly spend apart. During their torrid teenage affair, he decides to drop out of University and go backpacking through South America with his friends. “Don’t worry”, he assures her, “It’s only 10 months”. At first she believes the lie – hangs a map of South America on her wall, and tracks his progress with pins from wherever his letters are coming from. But then, as was inevitable, the letters start coming less frequently – they are at times obliviously cruel, and then stop altogether. Camille is devastated – but then moves on.

We meet her again, years later, as she’s studying architecture. She has cropped her hair short, and still pines, at least at times, for Sullivan. But gradually she comes out of her funk. She develops a relationship with one of her professors Lorenz (Magne-Havard Brekke) – who is older, wiser and yet still wears his hair long, like many middle aged men trying to convince themselves that he is still young. The two are comfortable with each other – and despite what we initially think – this is no mid-life crisis fling for Lorenz. These two do love each other – but it isn’t the type of love that rocked Camille’s being as a teenager. So when she runs into Sullivan’s mother one day, and gives her her new phone number, we know it’s only going to be a matter of time before Sullivan shows back up.

I couldn’t help thinking of the Twilight series when I watched Goodbye First Love. No, this movie does not have werewolves or vampires, but its main character shares the same delusion of what love is with Bella – the heroine of the Twilight saga. For both of them, love should be an all-consuming passion. But there is a key difference between these two – and that’s because writer-director Mia Hansen-Love understands how soul destroying that kind of all-consuming love can be – and how unrealistic it is. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert complains that the movie should be harder on Sullivan – even if Camille cannot see it, he really is a jerk – and unlike her, he doesn’t seem to mature as he grows older. But Hansen-Love makes her movie from Camille’s point-of-view – a point of view that cannot help but love Sullivan, despite all his faults. But the audience can see who Sullivan really is, even if Camille cannot.

Goodbye First Love gets deeper as it moves along. At first, it seems like this will be a nostalgic look back at young love – the type most people have, and although they get over it, they never quite forget. The film opens in 1999 in Paris, and sees everything as wonderful and romantic. It would not surprise me to discover that this is, at least partly, based on Hansen-Love’s own experiences – she would have been a few years older than Camille in 1999, but not much. And her first film, The Father of My Children, was also somewhat autobiographical.

But it’s when the movie jumps forward in time that it goes deeper than mere nostalgia – and romantic longing. Because when Camille and Sullivan reunite – and discover that same passion still there – the movie doesn’t swoon like it does in those earlier scenes – there is a sense of sadness in these scenes, and a feeling that these two kids need to grow the hell up.

The performances help a great deal. Magne-Håvard Brekke as the older man isn’t the pervy old guy after hot young flesh that we expect him to be – he’s kind, sweet, trusting and thoughtful. Sebastian Urzendowsky as Sullivan has some of that bad boy attitude that women find so appealing – at least as teenagers, but is also good at showing how less romantic that seems when you grow older. He’s not a million miles away from some of the young men in a Catherine Breillent movie, who always talk the young women in their lives out of their virginity – but is seen much more sympathetically than Breillent could ever conceive. Best of all is Lola Créton, who is perfect as the naïve teenager, and never loses our sympathy even as she makes mistakes later in the movie. She’s a beauty – and a future French star to look out for – a younger Marion Cotillard if you will.

 
Overall, I think Goodbye First Love is a fine little movie. It’s an improvement over The Father of My Children, which everyone seemed to like more than I did, and shows that Hansen-Love really is a filmmaker to watch out for.

DVD Review: The Father of My Children

The Father of My Children *** ½
Directed by: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Written By: Mia Hansen-Løve.
Starring: Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (Grégoire Canvel), Chiara Caselli (Sylvia Canvel), Alice de Lencquesaing (Clémence Canvel), Alice Gautier (Valentine Canvel), Manelle Driss (Billie Canvel), Eric Elmosnino (Serge), Sandrine Dumas (Valérie), Dominique Frot (Bérénice), Antoine Mathieu (Frédéric), Igor Hansen-Løve (Arthur Malkavian), Elsa Pharaon (Colette), Olivia Ross (Anja).

The Father of My Children tells the story of an essentially good man, who reaches the end of his rope. It tells this story without dipping into melodrama, or becoming a psychological study, but simply presents us this man, and his family, and watches them for a while.

The man is Gregorie Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and he is the head of a small, indepedant film studio in Paris. If you are an acclaimed director, and no one else wants to make your film, you can go to Gregoire and he’ll somehow find you the money to do it. And that is probably why his studio is failing. He owes money to everyone, his latest production is director by a vain, egotisical Swedish director (obviously based on the Danish director Lars von Trier) whose epic production is running way over schedule and budget, and whose crew is on the verge of mutiny. For years Gregoire has been leveraging everything the studio has – especially the catalogue of films it produced – to get the money to make new ones – but this seems to have reached the end of the line. His creditors want to be paid, and they are tired of waiting. They have cut Gregoire as much slack as they have because they like him so much – everyone likes him. He is the kind of guy who puts his neck on the line for everyone. But sooner or later, it all catches up with him.

In addition to seeing Gregoire at work, we also see him at home. His wife Syliva (Chiara Caselli) loves and supports him – even when she gets sick and tired of him always being on the phone putting out one fire after another. His three daughters, especially the oldest Clemence (Alice de Lencquesaing, who yes, is the daughter of the star) love him as well. His enthusiasm is infectious, and his family and his workers are all willing to cut him more slack than they would with probably anyone else.

The film is strange in that it seems to be cut into two – the shocking end to the first act is where most movies would end. But writer director Mia Hansen-Love is interested in more than most directors. She doesn’t end the film at the point that makes the most sense – but pushes on farther. And its that push that I think makes The Father of My Children a special film. It goes beyond what we expect, and ends in a place that is surprisingly touching.

Gregoire takes the easy way out. It is a selfish act he does half way through the film, and yet there are almost no moments where anyone really gets mad at him. He was too lovable, too committed, too passionate – and he inspired loyalty in people. They may not have shared his vision, but they wanted to help him achieve what he set out to do. I can’t think of another film that quite works the way this one does. The one that comes to mind is Oliver Assayas’ Summer Hours (Hansen-Love got her start as an actress in Assayas’ films, and is now married to him) which was also a strange film about a family, that goes beyond what most films of its sort do. The Father of My Children is a tribute to cinema, to family and to this man, based on a real life producer who helped Hansen-Love early in her directing career, and ended up just like Gregoire.