Things to Come

Initially premiering at the Alliance Française French Film Festival last month, writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things To Come is a humane and moving portrayal of real life and real pain as told through the struggles of Isabelle Huppert’s Nathalie, a fifty something philosophy teacher who must contend with a husband who leaves her, a mother who demands too much of her and a former student who has taken her teachings to a possibly extremist end.

Nathalie’s life is upended against the background noise of political reform and activism. A former political activist and communist herself, Nathalie now avoids any sort of political opinion or agenda. Faced with a classroom where the number of empty seats is increasing and a husband who betrays her and leaves her, Nathalie begins a journey of liberation and self-reflection, aided by the return of a former student. Fabien (Roman Kolinka) is a political activist and writer who, inspired by his time in class, dedicates himself to social reform and begins a renewed friendship with Nathalie in the wake of her separation. In many ways, their relationship is the crux of the film with both Huppert and Kolinka crafting an unexpectedly sweet and complex friendship as they each challenge one another’s paths in life.

On the surface, Things to Come is a simple film of a sadly common enough story. The pace is elegiac and the plot episodic to a degree. Hansen-Løve revels in the small, intimate details of this woman’s new life. She is helped, of course, by a touching lead performance from Huppert whose portrayal of Nathalie is wonderfully devoid of any vanity and exceedingly human. At one point as Nathalie and her ex-husband Heinz (André Marcon) discuss the divorce, Nathalie mourns the garden she will lose at their holiday home, the garden she has put decades of her life into. The sadness of this small loss is palpable and speaks to the larger tragedy at play.

The rest of the cast is equally talented with Édith Scob as Nathalie’s possessive and domineering mother, a former model now suffering from depression, a particular highlight. Their relationship is at times bitter and at times loving but never anything less than real. The same can be said for the rest of the film.

Things to Come 
In cinemas now
View Trailer