Review | Film review: Things to Come – Isabelle Huppert braves the trials of middle age in engaging portrait
Mia Hansen-Love’s fifth feature looks at a fifty-something woman struggling to deal with the future after her husband leaves her for another woman
4/5 stars
Mia Hansen-Love delivers her most mature and accomplished work to date with her fifth feature – which certainly marks a credible gear change from her last film, Eden. While that DJ-centric tale was a film about youthful highs and lows, Things to Come focuses on the trials of middle age.
Continuing her current rich vein of form after Paul Verhoeven’s Elle, Isabelle Huppert plays Nathalie, a fifty-something philosophy professor who finds that even her refined knowledge of the world’s great thinkers provides little comfort after her husband of 25 years (Andre Marcon) decides to leave her for another woman.
With an increasingly difficult mother (Edith Scob) to deal with, and the prospect of facing old age alone, Nathalie faces an uncertain future. Some directors would deliver an easy resolution or catharsis, but to her credit, Hansen-Løve explores her drama with more ambition.
