The Future

As much as the process of watching this new work from hipster polymath, Miranda July, transported me to the verge of wanting to gouge my own eyes out with a melon baller, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's an intelligent, astutely judged and ruthlessly self-effacing auto-critique. July, still looking every bit the Manga cartoon pixie brought to life, stars as an awkward, impulsive dance instructor who takes leave of her directionless, look-a-likey boyfriend (Hamish Linklater) to have a strange affair (more a piece of flirtatious, ad-infinitum role-playing) with a balding suburban widower. To add that proceedings are narrated by an ailing, helium-voiced cat should clarify that, unlike her previous indie hit, 'Me and You and Everyone We Know' (2005), this is a piece of all-out experimentation. One reading of this gratifyingly open film is that even though it embraces a surface level kook, it’s also about the art of (and emotional strain that comes with) maintaining a kooky facade. Kook in quote marks, if you will. Not a crowd-pleaser by any measure, but a mature, bold and recklessly inquisitive film, however unpleasant it is to consume in the moment.