For Sophie and Jason, a fairly bohemian recent couple living in LA, life has come to a standstill. Jason (Hamish Linklater) is a customer service rep, working from home, whilst Sophie (Miranda July) is an aspiring dancer. The two find themselves at a lull in their relationship, seemingly uninterested, unexcited and extremely bored. At this point, Jason tells Sophie that he can freeze time, and encourages Sophie to pretend along with him. This, the film, seems to suggest, is demonstrative of the stale nature of their relationship in that they feel like their lives are trudging along with little to no significance.
In a bid to freshen things up, the two decide to adopt an injured cat from the local pet centre. This cat - bizarrely voiced by July in segments which employ a cat puppet to properly articulate its gestures - has an altogether holistic approach to life and manages to provides an almost out-of-body assessment of life, not only its own but that in general.
As Sophie and Jason drift further apart - him finding work as a door to door tree salesman pretending to preach the gospel of saving the environment, and she falling into the arms of an older singleton who seems to be sexually charged - the cat 'Paw Paw' delivers a soliloquy throughout, the dialogue changing to reflect the current state of affairs and thoughts which are heartbreaking.
With the stale couple realising they are no longer meant for each other, they also discover that Paw Paw has died, their stagnation and lack of care for one another has cost them the life of the very thing that was meant to keep them together.
Whilst The Future contains some baffling scenes and ideas - Jason finds himself conversing with the moon, and Sophie's attempts at replicating Youtube dance videos are not only irritating but also rather pointless - the feeling of stagnation within a relationship is one that is not only extremly difficult to portray within a film but is also different to articulate into spoken word, so for that sense of helplessness and suffocation to be expressed so well is of credit to July, who directed the film herself, having won at Cannes and Sundance with her previous work.
The one sour note, however, is that there aren't any likeable characters in the film as such. Whilst Jason is simply a man who is betrayed by his girlfriend and in part seeks to find a better life, there is little else to feel towards him. Sophie on the other hand carries herself in such a manner that it is incredibly to like anything about her, let alone the man she ends up sleeping with.
6/10
