The Future – 2011 LAFF

This weekend the Los Angeles Film Festival hosted a screening of writer/director Miranda July’s new film, The Future. Slated to be in theaters August 2011, The Future is highly anticipated not only by her own cult following, but in critic circles as well. After all, her debut film, Me You and Everyone We Know, won the coveted Caméra d’Or at Cannes. Roger Ebert even went as far to say that Me You and Everyone We Know was one of the “best films of the decade”. The Future, which follows the lives of two 35-year-olds, is not a continuation of Me You and Everyone We Know… or at least, as July puts it, “not a conscious continuation."

No, the film explores what happens when a quirky couple decides to adopt an ailing, wild cat. When the cat must spend one month at the veterinary hospital recovering from injuries, the couple decides that they must cram everything they ever wanted from life into those thirty days- before they have to succumb to the responsibilities of being a cat parent.

They quit their jobs, turn off the Internet, and pursue their individual dreams; Sophie (played by July) as a dancer, and Jason (Hamish Linklater) as an environmental conservationist. The film is interlaced with moments where the cat, Paw Paw, narrates the story. Paw Paw is open and innocent, playing opposite to the non-articulate, flawed characters in the film.

In The Future the line between realities and metaphors is blurred. The result is a kind of magical reality that causes the audience to live in the moment. This notion is exactly what July aimed for, saying that “nothing else matters but the moment," and that she only really cares “about the feeling” the audience is experiencing.

Just as abstract and intricate as the film, is the writer/director herself. July’s reputation precedes her, and it is easy to see why. She is awkwardly charming (something that translates onto the screen), while at the same articulate and confident. Her following, as well as those who have yet to become smitten, will no doubt adore The Future.

Alas. When asked about the 5 year intervals between her first films, July made it clear that she is in no rush to make a third film. Spacing her film projects apart allows her to “dodge the industry”. And while she says that this is probably not the best way to make it big in film, she admits that it is a “good way to live”.