Dec 1 — THE FUTURE

The much-talked-about Miranda July — filmmaker, New Yorker fiction author, performance artist — wrote, directed, and stars in our last feature of 2011: THE FUTURE.

July made a splash with her 2005 directoral debut, ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW,  a charmingly offbeat and observant film about people looking for love. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Roger Ebert declared it the fifth best film of the decade.

Reviews for THE FUTURE are all over the map, because the film is much harder to categorize. It’s pushes quirkiness to new heights with magic realist elements some find viewers find endearing, others off-putting.

The plot revolves around a low energy couple who foster a sick cat — hey, is this timely in Cape Breton, or what? — in hopes that it will prepare them for deeper commitments. The results are alternately amusing and heartbreaking. Or as the New York Times called it, “a blend of whimsy and difficult emotion.”

“This is a comedy of inertia, laced with whimsical gestures, but its sense of fun is shadowed by desperation,” writes Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. “The couple plans great things for a month of freedom—after that, the cat will enter and fill their lives—but Sophie seems only to find further loneliness, rather than comfort or thrills, by using the time to start an affair with a man she barely knows.”

Among the smart young women of our era, July is a hugely admired cultural icon. If only to find out what all the fuss is about, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.

THE FUTURE plays one show only, 7 p.m., Thursday, December 1, at the Empire Theatre Studio 10, Sydney. It is the last film of our Fall 2011 season.