Isabelle Huppert plays Nathalie, a professor struggling through difficult times, in Things to Come. (Photo courtesy of Les Films du Losange)Isabelle Huppert has been dazzling movie audiences worldwide for more than half a century, and she’s the main reason to see Things to Come, an understated French drama from writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden, Goodbye First Love).
Huppert (who’s also impressive in Elle, still in theaters) plays Nathalie Chazeaux, a woman who feels, not without reason, that the cruel universe is conspiring to keep her unhappy. The movie extracts few easy lessons from her struggles, but it’s a patient look at the incremental degradation of her happiness, with a few glimmers of hope that there’s a future beyond the misery.
Nathalie teaches philosophy at a Paris university, where she labors to make life’s biggest and most unanswerable questions compelling to a group of teenagers with concerns that lie far beyond the classroom. Meanwhile, much to her chagrin, her publishing house wants to make drastic changes to her written works.
She comes home to her husband Heinz (André Marcon) and their son and daughter. Life in the Chazeaux household is reserved, save for early-morning phone calls from Nathalie’s mother (Edith Scob), who’s struggling with dementia, crippling panic attacks, and a trigger-happy 911 habit.
A tenuous peace is broken by a death in the family, followed shortly by Heinz’ announcement that he plans to move in with his long-time mistress.
Most movies would depict Nathalie’s reaction to these potentially cataclysmic events as hysterical. But there is no place for such histrionics in a movie that favors a measured, introspective tone. Nathalie barely bats an eye when Heinz confesses his transgression, likely because the lack of passion in their relationship served as suitable foreshadowing.
Thanks to Huppert’s soulful performance, Nathalie comes across as a complex figure: stubborn, supportive, thoughtful, bemused, downtrodden. She maintains dignity even when she acts impulsively. The world seems to have one idea for what she should be doing, and hers is very different.
Not every storyline in Things to Come works. A plotline involving one of Nathalie’s former students, performed with vigor by Roman Kolinka, hews too close to caricatures of generational differences. Nathalie’s children don’t get enough of the intimate screentime that’s afforded to Nathalie herself, which keeps them from appearing three-dimensional.
Things to Come doesn’t have much of a plot beyond various unfortunate events. Much of it is spent observing Nathalie as she moves about her days, slowly approaching conclusions about how to proceed in the wake of grief and confusion. The movie is a portrait that evolves ever-so-slowly, as if in real time.
The stunning final shot places the camera between two parts of Nathalie’s house, as a wistful song plays over the credits. The movie ends with the narrative equivalent of a gradual fade: Natalie’s story isn’t over, even though the time we spend with it is. Hansen-Løve provides a window into Nathalie’s interior self and honors her with an honest glimpse at a working woman enduring a difficult period and, with hope, emerging from it stronger.
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Things to Come
Written and directed by Mia Hansen-Løve
With Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon, Roman Kolinka
Rated PG-13 for brief language and drug use
102 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema
