Things To Come (L’Avenir)
SPEC D: Mia Hansen-Løve. France/Germany. 100 min. Sep 8, 9:15 pm, Ryerson Sep 11, 9:15 am, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2. Rating: NNNN
Writer/director Hansen-Løve follows his decades-spanning Eden with this smaller and more intimate character study of a Paris philosophy teacher and author (Isabelle Huppert) who finds herself, in middle age, facing divorce and an uncertain future.
Despite all the upheaval, Things To Come is an oddly calm film. Hansen-Løve doesn’t force the drama, but simply observes, letting the magnificent Huppert find the tension or emotion in the moment as her character, a lifelong intellectual, gradually realizes that life can only be analyzed for so long before you actually have to live it.